


Forget-Me-Nots and Second Thoughts

by Prismatic Bell (Nina_Dances_In_Technicolor)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: Adventure, Canon Queer Character, Coming of Age, Dysphoria, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Offscreen Shenanigans, Other, Queer Themes, Slice of Life, Trans Male Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-04-16 10:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4622472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nina_Dances_In_Technicolor/pseuds/Prismatic%20Bell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jyuudai Yuuki was not always the central focus of Johann's life. Seventeen years of it came before Jyuudai, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He's six, and it's a very pretty dress.

Pale green with princess sleeves and edged with lace. The skirt is full and ruffled and there are brand-new tights to go underneath. Every single girl in kindergarten would have died for a dress just like it.

It's hung up in his parents' room so he won't get it dirty before family portraits are taken, and he's not sure he'd dare touch it anyway, but that night he takes his mother's sewing scissors and creeps into the toilet and shears off six years' worth of baby-fine ringlets by the light of the streetlamp outside the window. His head feels lighter without them, and so does his heart; even the next day, when his mother cries and asks why he'd do such a thing when he's such a pretty little girl, tearfully takes him to a hairstylist to even out the worst of the damage, he feels better. The dress could be replaced, maybe; but the hair will just have to grow back in, the stylist says. It probably won't look the same. _Are you satisfied now?_ his mother asks, and calls him a name that has never sounded like himself. _You're going to look like a boy, and this is the picture we're supposed to hang on our wall._

He says he's sorry. 

What he thinks in his heart is _good._

\-----------------

The first time it happens, he's pretty sure he's seeing things.

He discovers quickly that he _is_ seeing things, and those things are real; the tiny green creature above the display flaps a wing at him, calls him _jungeschen_ and tells him exactly which pack he needs to grab. He tries to hand it to his mother, who tells him it's a boys' game and makes him put it back in spite of his protestations that _lots_ of girls play Duel Monsters, there was even a girl who was a finalist in Duelist Kingdom and it was _just_ in the newspaper and he knows it's useless, but he pleads anyway. At last his father chuckles and shakes his head and takes the pack out of his hands.

“It's cheap,” he says, and hands it back. “Let her have a little something.” 

He bites his tongue over the _her_ and keeps it bitten until they're in the car. Then he tears open the pack and the creature he saw hanging out on the display rack is sitting in his hand and on his shoulder both—the one on his shoulder large and incorporeal, the one in his hand on a card. _Leuchtende Freundschaft_ , the card name says. Shining Friendship. 

It churrs in his ear, and he smiles. He's sure it will be.

\------------------

As long as he's been able to remember, there's been a boy with gold eyes in his dreams.

He's looked through the family photo album and never found him. His mother swears he's just got an imaginary friend and needs to grow out of it; his father suggests perhaps at some point he saw the boy in a movie, or maybe a cartoon. People in real life do not have gold eyes.

But this boy does, and his eyes are kind; he doesn't use the wrong name. Instead he says _jewel._ That's all right; it's like his mother calling him _Mäuschen_ , only different in a way he doesn't have words for. His hands and feet are comically large compared to the rest of him, and in most of the dreams the boy is smiling. 

Until the night he wakes up from one of these dreams screaming in pain, trying to slap out flames that don't actually exist, racing to the mirror in the bathroom to be sure his hair isn't on fire. His mother calls it a nightmare and puts him back to bed, only to come back two hours later to calm him while he cries.

The doctor calls the dreams _night terrors_ and says they'll fade on their own. Eventually he gets into the habit of rolling onto his stomach as soon as they wake him, pushing his face into the pillow because his parents are both tired of the screaming. At first the boy with gold eyes tried to save him; then he vanished from the dreams altogether, and now nothing comforts him except the spirits from his deck.

He's ten before the nightmares stop abruptly one day, and after about a week he has the dream again: sitting under a tree that is not exactly a willow, looking out at the sea. There should be a drowsing boy sleeping across his legs.

There isn't. He's just alone.

\--------------------

His first tournament isn't exactly an auspicious start to a pro career.

It's in some other school's gym, the strongest deck in it is played by someone who copied Katsuya Jyonouchi's, and the duelmaster is a dad who looks like he regrets ever buying that Christmas present. But it's a chance to duel against people who aren't in his own class, and so he hides a baseball cap and a pair of jeans in his backpack and shows up with his bob crammed up under the hat and his school skirt shoved at the bottom of his bag with his history book on top of it. The tired mother who signs him in doesn't give him a second glance when she asks for his name, age, and the name of his school.

Then he gives her his last name only, and everything goes cockeyed. She gives him a sharp look, and frowns. There are already three other Andersons written down on her list, and suddenly he realizes he has a problem.

“Your _full_ name,” she says, and he ducks his head to hide the panic he's sure is written across his face. He can't hand her his school ID, not with that name and that haircut and that stupid Formal Days pinafore in the picture. She opens her mouth to say something else.

“Johann,” he spits out, and the suspicion on her face lifts a little. “Johann Anderson. I'm eleven. I go to Sacred Heart.”

She scribbles the name on the paper and waves him into the gym. It's not his name—Johann is the boy who sits next to him in music class and has possibly the most beautiful eyelashes he's ever seen—but it feels more like his name than the one on the little plastic card hidden in his backpack, and when they call him up to duel he doesn't even have to pause to think about who _Johann Anderson_ is. 

The duel isn't pretty. His deck isn't strong, particularly—he relies entirely on what he gets out of booster packs, and the only rare card in it doesn't exactly match the rest of his deck—but he knows how to use what he's got better than the kid up against him, who has to be reminded twice how to calculate damage. Johann beats him in two turns: a trap card, some direct damage, and it's all over.

The adults whisper among themselves. Johann stands in his spot at the basketball foul line, heart pounding, wondering if one of them placed a call to his school; the boy he sits next to in music class is not an Anderson, and he's sure he's going to be found out.

Then one of them comes over, takes the yellow sticker off the jumper he borrowed for five marks from one of his male classmates, and replaces it with a red one. He gets a nod toward the other side of the court, where the group waiting to duel is made up entirely of kids at least a head taller than he. 

They're high schoolers. The duelmaster put him in with the high schoolers.

Another two rounds tells him why: his first opponent in his new tier is fifteen, and Johann takes only a thousand points of damage before earning his second win. By the time they call semifinals, he's pretty sure he's never going to be able to duel at this school again. And when his name comes up for the final duel—eleven-year-old Johann Anderson against a sixteen-year-old with arms like a gorilla and a piece of metal through his lip—he very nearly runs, and not from fear. The sixteen-year-old is playing one of the new Fusion decks, and Johann isn't afraid of any deck that requires specific cards in the hand to summon high-level monsters. 

That duel he doesn't win. But as both their duel disks spin down to zero, a hush falls over the gym and then half a dozen of the middle-schoolers he left behind burst into spontaneous applause. 

They give him his scorecard for the day—something some of the kids save for scouts, he guesses, and he'll probably find a small box to keep under the forest of shoes in his closet so he can do the same—and a badly-copied flyer that explains when these duel events take place, and then as he's leaving, ready to run home to make it before his parents, they give him something else as one of the middle-schoolers yells after him:

“Hey, Anderson, come back next week!”

\---------------------------

He's always the first one to get to the mail because he's always the first one home, and so he—and the spirits in his deck—are the only ones around when he flips through the pile of junk and bills only to find a small white card addressed to Johann Anderson and slits it open, puzzled. As far as he knows, only the people from the dueling intramural know him by that name. 

Then he reads the card inside, and lets out a shriek. 

It's an invitational, and Duelmaster Bachmeier nominated him to represent the intramural.

His spontaneous dancing around the kitchen lasts right up until Shining Friendship asks him a question, and then his excitement pops like a balloon on a pin. It's just one line at the bottom of the card, but it's enough to turn everything sour.

_All participants are asked to bring proof of identification and a parent or legal guardian._

He puts the card in his room and wonders if he should fake being sick the day of the invitational. Or maybe he can ask the Duelmaster to take him . . . no. Sure to fail.

He's so caught up in wild plans involving his birth certificate and a bottle of correction fluid that he never even hears his mother come in, nor call the name that isn't really his. It's not until she's in his room and kissing his forehead that he even notices she's home.

“Long day?”

“Something like that, yeah.” 

“It looks like you got mail.”

“Yeah.” He pushes the envelope casually out of the way, where she can't see the name on the front. His mother sits down on the bed.

“Mäuschen,” she says, and he bites his tongue before he can ask her to stop calling him that. “Sweetheart, I'm worried about you.”

The comment is so bizarre he can only stare. Worried? Because he's preoccupied with a piece of mail? Then he notices the circles under her eyes. Shit.

 _She knows._ Knows what, knows how much, he doesn't know. It seems like a bad idea to ask. She sighs and takes his hands.

“You've been so different since you started school this year,” she says. “You used to talk to me about everything and now it's like trying to have a conversation with the wall. Your clothes, too. Everything is different. Like you're hiding from something.” She closes her eyes, and Johann realizes she's been rehearsing this conversation all day. Maybe longer. “You can talk to me about anything, you know that, don't you? If you need help . . . ”

He shakes his head and opens his mouth to say he's fine.

“Mum, I've got a question.”

She raises her eyebrows at him. Under them, he thinks he can see relief. He shifts in his chair.

“We did sex ed last year, you know, and they said . . . sometimes there are babies where they can't really tell what they're supposed to be. You know, by looking.”

“Yes?” 

“Was I one of those babies?”

The laugh she lets out is tentative. “No,” she says. “You were normal as could be. Why?”

“Do they ever make mistakes?”

“Mistakes?”

“When they say a baby's a boy or girl.”

The relief he saw in her eyes fades into something harder—cool, almost suspicious. “What is this about?”

“It's just that—I think they did, Mum. I was supposed to be a boy.”

Her lips press together, and she lets go of his hands and stands up. “Do your homework.”

“Mum—”

She pushes past him and out the door. He sighs and opens one of his textbooks. The words swim on the page, and he rubs a sleeve across his eyes before putting his head on the desk.

Then he hears his mother on the phone, and his heart goes cold.

When his parents come to his room together forty minutes later, neither is smiling. Neither looks like he could tell them everything; neither looks like he could tell them anything. His mother puts out a hand.

“Give me your cards.”

“Mum, no—”

“Give them to me.”

“ _Mum_ —” 

She screams the name that isn't his, all three parts of it, and slams a hand on his desk. He takes a step away from her and tries to remember if she's ever raised her voice to him that way before. His fingers catch on the right hand drawer and he slides it open, pulls out a stack of cards and sets it in her palm. He doesn't look her in the face. Her voice belongs to a stranger, and he's pretty sure he wouldn't be able to stand it if her eyes do, too.

“Go downstairs.”

He puts his head down and goes, sits on the sofa and tries not to cry. Upstairs he can hear drawers slamming and two voices lowered in argument. It's not long before his mother comes downstairs, the invitational card in her hand. It's torn in two, and when she throws it at his feet he feels his heart tear in two with it.

“If this is what comes of letting you choose your own activities,” she says, voice low enough to freeze him in place, “then you will not choose your own activities. You have two pairs of jeans upstairs. Tomorrow we get you real clothes. And there will be no more of this dueling nonsense or staying after school. You go to school, you come home, you do your chores and homework. If you do not, you lose your bedroom door. Do you understand?”

He nods, clenches his teeth tight together so he won't scream. Behind his mother is a trash bag full of his clothes, maybe a few of the treasures squirreled away in his bureau drawers. He won't know until he looks. His father is at the foot of the stairs, and for all Johann can tell he has no interest in the proceedings at all.

When he's allowed back upstairs, he goes at a run. Behind him he hears his father say _you shouldn't have been so hard on her, she's just confused_ and his mother say _then I'll see she isn't_ and yell at him not to slam the door before he's even touched it. 

He doesn't slam it. He just locks it and yanks open his closet door, all too aware the room is half-empty, bare, and that something is terribly wrong.

The box with his dueling certificates is still in the closet, well-hidden under outgrown shoes and last year's backpack and a binder full of Pokemon cards he lost interest in when he realized all the characters were fictional, and he pulls the lid off so fast he almost tears it.

His deck still isn't talking to him.

“They were just spares!” he whispers at it, and can't keep the tears back this time. “It was just a stack of traps, there were no spirit cards in there, I swear.”

There's still no answer. He sifts through the cards, wondering in some wild back corner of his mind if maybe his parents went through this box and took only his spirit cards, but no—all of them are still there, still neatly slotted in the protective sleeves. They just won't speak.

“Come on, come on!” 

And then he realizes he can't feel the presence of the spirits at all.

And then he puts his head on his knees and starts to sob.

\---------------------

“I don't know what to do with her. She's gotten so quiet.”

“We could give her cards back. Her marks are exemplary.”

“Absolutely not. You know what happened last time.”

“Yes, but she shouldn't be sitting in her room all night. A tomboy is better than a recluse.”

“No!”

Johann pushes off the wall and heads back to his room. He's heard this argument at least once a week since spring, and it's only gotten more frequent since his report card came in. He's third in his year, top scores in everything except English and biology, but his teachers have made comments like _withdrawn_ and _failure to participate,_ and his father homed in on the source with unerring accuracy.

His deck hasn't spoken since That Night, and he's starting to wonder if it ever will again or if, maybe, it feels as weary as he does. A darker part of him he doesn't like to acknowledge wonders if the spirits have told each other he's a danger to them, and won't speak to him out of fear.

His mother calls the name that isn't actually his. He sighs and goes back downstairs and into the kitchen, where she's flicking through the notebook he keeps full of his school stuff. 

“Yeah?”

“Who is Hannah Albreight?” 

He shrugs. “She sits next to me in class.”

“You have an invitation to a party of hers.”

“Oh yeah. Her birthday's next week.” He tries to muster up some enthusiasm and can't. Hannah is the kind of girl who gets up early to curl her hair for school. There are high heels and nail polish on the invite. Somewhere out there is a god Johann angered somehow, and this is its revenge. “I think she's doing a sleepover and, um . . . like a roller-skating party the next day or something.”

“Did you want to go?”

He's on the verge of saying no when it hits him: sleepover. Skating. About twenty hours out of the house. He shrugs.

“I figured I wasn't allowed.”

“You need to get out more. You're starting to look ill all the time.” She hands him the invite. “Think what you'd like to get her and we can pick it up tomorrow when I get home from work.”

He thinks of the thing that made him change his answer, and when he smiles in what he hopes his mother will take as thanks, it's genuine. 

Then he goes upstairs and rolls half a dozen T-shirts into last year's backpack.

It might be too simple to work. But he can try.

\---------------------------

_This is never going to work._

“You should wear your hair up more often, it looks so good on you.”

He shoots a smile back over his shoulder that has nothing to do with his hair—curled and pinned back in a process that took too long from the moment the first bobby pin was in place—and everything to do with how different he looks in the mirror in front of him. He barely recognizes himself. Perfect.

_It's still not going to work!_

_I'll make it work._

He glances at the clock on Hannah's nightstand and rubs his stomach. Just a little bit. Then he lets someone else comment on his too-big school sweater and decide to put him in a dress, and does his best to fake knowing how to paint someone else's nails.

They're halfway through 'makeovers' when Hannah's mother calls them to cake. Johann does his best to get into the middle of the group, then steps aside when he reaches the foot of the stairs and tries on his best distressed look.

“Mrs. Albreight?”

She knows the name that isn't really his, and he has to give her credit for bothering to learn it. She also looks concerned enough that he almost feels bad. But he has two choices, and one isn't really a choice at all, so this is it.

“I didn't want to say anything upstairs, but I actually really don't feel that well and I don't want to ruin Hannah's night so I wondered if—if it'd be okay if I walked home, and if I'm feeling better if I came back for skating.”

He glances at the clock on the wall again. Her father could be home any minute. Mrs. Albreight might decide a house full of teenage girls can handle ten minutes alone. If there's much more delay, his plan won't have been for anything. Hannah's mother puts a hand on his forehead and frowns.

“You're not feverish,” she says. “Do you need an Aktren?”

He shakes his head. At last she sighs.

“Well,” she says. “Be sure to get some rest.” Then she smiles. “I hope you'll be back tomorrow.”

“So do I,” he tells her, but as he heads out the door what he really hopes is that he'll never see the inside of the Albreights' house again, and as he rounds the corner he takes off in a run.

Last year's backpack is still in the storage locker where he left it, and when he races into the main terminal at the train station with eight minutes to go he thinks he does a reasonable job of looking tearful and out of breath.

“I need a ticket to Munich,” he says, and gets a very strange look from the clerk behind the counter as he pushes a bill under the glass. “My parents were visiting and there was an accident and I need to go, _please_.”

“What name?”

“Angela Ritter.” Two days ago, a woman named Angela Ritter was arrested for public drunkenness. Her name was in the police column in the newspaper.

“Hold on.”

The clerk picks up a phone. Johann holds his breath and strains to hear what's going on behind the glass, but can't do it. The clerk swivels back and pushes three bills and a handful of coins back under the glass with a thick piece of paper beneath them, and points.

“Portal three. Run.”

There's one seat left, all the way in the back against the window. Johann slides last year's backpack under the seat and listens impatiently to the announcements about not smoking and the schedule. 

The wheels roll, and he leans back with a sigh of relief.

Angela Ritter will disappear as soon as he gets off the train. And the name that isn't his . . . that died as soon as he set foot in the station.

_It worked._

\------------------

“I'm telling you, there are no girls of that age and description in this station,” Johann hears. “I saw someone get off the train from Ingolstadt, but that was a boy in a dress, and he's gone already.”

Johann pushes open the door to the toilet and walks out, doing his best to look bored and tired and exactly like every other traveler on an evening train. If they ask to look in the black and purple bag he bought at the kiosk just inside the station, he's screwed; if they find last year's backpack shoved behind the dustbins outside the kiosk and connect it with him, he's equally screwed. And if they decide to search the dustbin in the toilet right now and find the two handfuls of hair he clipped off his head, he might as well already be back in Ingolstadt.

The conductor and the security officer in their debate about the missing girl who isn't actually Angela Ritter don't even give him a glance. He's just another kid with a bad boy band haircut and a Spider-Man teeshirt, wearing sneakers his mother should really throw in the washer this weekend. 

He buys a new train ticket, this one to Berlin and in the name of Hans Grüner. The clerk raises an eyebrow at him, and he shrugs.

“It's my dad's weekend,” he sighs, and the clerk makes a sympathetic face before pushing the ticket under the glass. Johann takes it and leaves the station.

The train doesn't leave until midnight, and the train from Ingolstadt to Munich didn't have food available. The money Johann saved by no longer being able to bring new packs of cards into the house is running thin, and he's going to need a new jacket when he gets to Berlin, so he finally sighs and settles for McDonald's. It fills his stomach, at least, and he settles back at the station with the only book he bothered bringing. He puts a hand on his deck holder, but it's only habit; the spirits within still don't speak. 

When the train finally pulls in, he puts his book away and heads straight for the sleepers. There's one more thing he has to do before he's pretty sure he'll be safe, but it has to wait. 

He has five hours til Frankfurt, and he intends to use them.

\------------------

_I can't believe I almost missed the alarm._

_But you didn't._

_No. Lucky._

He leaves the train with his backpack slung over his shoulder and a small box under one arm. It took some creativity, but he managed to get it closed and sealed. He meanders around the platform until he hears a couple speaking in unfamiliar accents, and he heads for them as quickly as he dares.

“Excuse me,” he says in English, and they look up, startled. “I know this is strange, I'm sorry. My name is Johann—” and oh, it feels good, it feels _free_ —“and I wondered if you could do me a small favor. I'm on my way to Berlin because I'm flying to Duel Academia and I got a dress for my sister before I got on the train in Munich, and I just realized I won't have time to post it before my plane. It's already addressed, if I gave you the money for the post could you send it for me when you get to Berlin?”

The couple look at each other and speak in a language Johann doesn't know. Then the woman smiles regretfully. 

“We would, but we are not going to Berlin. Is it strange if we send it from Venice?”

“Not at all, it's still faster than getting it back here from Japan,” he says, and relinquishes the box and a ten-mark note with a sigh of relief. “She's got a school concert next week and I wanted her to have something nice, since I won't be here.” He also won't be in Japan. He certainly won't be sitting the examination for Duel Academia, and he pushes the thought to the back of his head before it can show on his face and give away something other than “excited older brother.” The woman smiles at him and relays his comment to her companion. Johann's watch beeps, and he checks it with what he hopes looks like a vaguely startled expression.

“I have to get back to my train, I'm sorry,” he says, and they both smile this time. “Thanks!”

He doesn't quite run; doesn't want them to think he has anything to run _from_ , and they've already seen his face plenty longer than he's comfortable with, given what's in the box. But it's quite a nice dress, and not Hannah's fault he picked it to run away in. And it lets him say goodbye to his parents, if they actually shake out the dress to find the letter inside. 

He didn't sign it with the name that was never actually his, but he's sure they'll figure it out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once Johann's in Berlin, everything changes.
> 
> Well. Most things. Some things are a work in progress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this story mostly stands on its own without notes, but I want to put a particular warning on this chapter for misgendering and mentions of theoretical violence.
> 
> I would also like to add that this is a work of realistic fantasy, and that if you are (or know) a young transgender person who's had enough, _the path Johann picks is neither a good nor a safe one in real life._ That he doesn't find himself assaulted or dead is the product of research and author's license on my part and resourcefulness and protagonist power on his. If you need help with an abusive family situation due to coming out as trans, please seek it through a resource like the Trevor Project or a school counselor.

He's been in Berlin almost two weeks when he hears a phrase on the television at work that catches his attention.

He's pretty sure nobody noticed that he noticed; it's well after dark, and most of the people in the bar are either drunk or working on it. But he smiles and gently refuses when somebody occasionally offers him a beer, and so as they approach what the bartender calls “drunk o'clock” he's still perfectly able to catch the phrase _missing girl from Ingolstadt._

The picture they have of him is almost two years old, and that's good; his parents told the news he signed his letter to them as Johann, and that's bad. His boss is also watching the TV, and that's worse. Johann keeps a single half-interested eye on the screen while he finishes grabbing empty glasses, and when the story switches over he pretends to lose interest and wanders into the back to dump his bus tub full of mugs. 

He thinks he's gotten away clean until close; the last few drunks wander out, he scrubs out the toilets first because there's no point delaying the inevitable, and then he heads to the kitchen to help wash up the glasses. His boss is cleaning the underbar when he brings out a tray of glasses to hang.

“Shame about that girl on the news,” his boss says, and Johann manages to pause not at all while he stretches to put the wineglasses back where they belong.

“Yeah,” he agrees. His boss grunts. 

“Hope she's dead, myself,” he says. “If she's not, she probably wishes she was.”

Johann takes as deep a breath as the bandage under his shirt will allow and shrugs. “I couldn't hear it, did they say what happened?”

“No, her parents say they don't have a clue. She left a party and disappeared. They got a package from Italy postmarked two days later, had her clothes and a letter in it and not a peep since. You didn't know her, did you?”

“How would I know her?”

“Cousin, maybe. You could damn near be twins.”

Johann stands on his toes to hang the last glass off his tray and slides it under the cash register. “Not me. It's always just been me and my parents.”

“Huh. Bad luck for you she decided to make a run under your name, then.” His boss counts out of the register and hands him a fold of marks. “Make sure you bring your ID tomorrow, I need to get you on the books.” 

Johann says he will. He tells his boss to have a good night. He goes to an Internet cafe and orders a Coke. 

Forty-five minutes later, he leaves. Goes back to the youth hostel where he's registered under a name it's too dangerous to use right now. Packs his backpack, walks out the back way. 

He's probably going to be sleeping in a park, but that's still safer; and the money he's got will have to last him awhile.

He doesn't know when he'll be able to get another job.

\------------------

“Hey! Hey, Anderson!”

Johann pauses before he turns around. He topped the tournament group again today, but this group uses newer duel disks than the one in Ingolstadt, and when the Solid Vision knocked him on his back he had an incredibly hard time getting his breath back. He's lost enough weight that going in public without the compression bandage might be possible, but he's still not willing to risk it. At last he leans against the doorframe and hopes he looks casual.

“Yeah?”

The kid with the pink and yellow hair gives him a weird look. Not as casual as he hoped, apparently. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I think I just got hit harder than I thought I did. What's up?”

“Couple of the older kids were giving these out.” The kid, whose name Johann can't remember, holds out a glossy card. Johann takes it. “I think it's an older league, but like, you're chewing people up here. That's gotta get boring. You're never gonna get better if you have to pretend to be shitty so you're not just winning in one turn every time.”

“You guys aren't shitty,” Johann says, but his eyes are fixed on the card. The suggested age range is 16-21 and the league printed a picture of Kurt Glöckner on the front, with a line of text saying it's the league he trained in. Johann knows that name; Kurt Glöckner has never made it to the International League, but he's placed twice in the Duel Eurocup. “They wouldn't take me, though. I'm fifteen.” And really, he's not even that; he was one of the oldest in his class in Ingolstadt, but he still has five months to go before he can even pretend he only attended Hauptschule. The kid whose name he can't remember shrugs.

“You could try,” he says. “Ed Phoenix just made it into the _Pro Leagues_. Tell them to let you duel before they say no.” The kid grins. “Maybe then _we_ can make league cards. 'Johann Anderson's first junior league'. That'd be cool.”

Johann smiles back. He really needs to get back to the hostel he's staying in this week; he's pretty sure the bandage actually tightened when he fell, and the last thing he needs to do is pass out in the street. As far as the legal system is concerned, he no longer exists, and that means he's not covered under the GKV anymore—any visit to a hospital will land him a trip straight back from Berlin to Ingolstadt when they look for his medical records. “Yeah, it would. Thanks.”

“Sure!” The kid slaps him a high five and runs off. Johann watches him go, then heads for the toilet. It's not yet cold enough outside for a coat and going without the bandage isn't an option, but if he doesn't adjust it he's pretty sure he won't make it back to the hostel.

He's finally on his way, deck tucked in the pouch under his hand with a pang that's now both old and familiar, when he hears a high sound that reminds him a little bit of a kitten. He looks up and sees what he first mistakes for a hummingbird directly in front of his face. Then the colors resolve themselves, and his mouth falls open.

_That's a duel spirit!_

The spirit is pulled away from him almost by force, and Johann takes off down the street after it, ignoring the bandage that's really too tight for this kind of running. He knows the card that spirit belongs to—got it in one of his very first booster packs, in fact, and only traded it away after being sure the spirit in it wasn't intended for him. For all he knows, this spirit is attached to the very same Soldatenbohnenmann card he picked up when he was nine years old, and he's going fast enough that he crashes head-on into a tall man in a khaki shirt and almost knocks them both to the sidewalk. He yells a sorry back over his shoulder and keeps going even as the man yells after him in a voice Johann finds weirdly unpleasant, in a fleeting kind of way, and then turns a corner where he finds the spirit hovering just outside a courtyard and looking dejected. Then it disappears.

There's a little boy laying on the cobbles in the courtyard, cards spread around him, one of them caught in his shirt. Johann goes running again, turns the boy onto his back and then pulls him up to sitting. There's no blood, but Johann remembers being hit in the head with a football when he was five and being dizzy for days, and being told that if he felt unexpectedly sleepy he should tell his mother right away. This boy's eyes are shut, and Johann rocks him back and forth to wake him. 

“Hey! What happened?”

At last the boy opens his eyes, and when he does the words _Jerry, Soldatenbohnenmann_ are some of the first out of his mouth. Johann listens to the boy's story and bites his tongue so he won't yell in anger that has nothing to do with the boy at his side. He's never thought ante duels were fair to start with, and using them against a boy who can't be more than six is the worst kind of dirty playing. 

He's pretty sure the boy thinks he's crazy when he says he's seen the little bean spirit—maybe even thinks he's some kind of fence for the card. But then he suggests that the card will come back to the little boy staring up at him with tears and confusion in his eyes, and the boy smiles. Johann scoops up a handful of cards and straightens them.

“We'd better take care of the rest of your deck,” he says, and the boy starts picking up cards. “What's your name?”

“Tom,” the boy tells him. “What's yours?”

“Johann.” He flips over a card and reads the front. “You play an Earth deck, huh?”

“Yeah.” Tom takes the small stack of cards from Johann's hands and straightens them, then slips his deck into his pocket. “It doesn't feel right without him.”

“We can look around and see if we can find the man who took your card,” Johann suggests, but his heart sinks. Should they find him, what then? Call the police? Challenge him to a duel to get it back? Johann is fast becoming a legend among kids his own age, but he's never dueled an adult. Enough shouting might bring someone who can help them, though, and he clings to the idea even as he realizes the thief is probably long gone. Tom nods enthusiastically and lets Johann lead him out onto the sidewalk. “Do you live around here?”

“I was on my way home from school,” Tom says. Johann assumes he's been told not to tell strangers where he lives and has to hide a smile when Tom grabs his hand. It's been a long time since he's done more than bump someone on the sidewalk. “Do you really think we can find him?”

“We can try.”

They scour the sidewalk for about forty minutes, and Johann stops at every single dustbin to check inside, but when the shadows lengthen and Tom starts to slow Johann finally gives up. The thief could easily have shown up on a moped or in a car, and even if he was on foot he'd be faster than two boys hampered by a chest bandage and a lot of bruises. At last he asks Tom again where he lives, and this time he gets an answer.

He piggybacks Tom most of the way home and drops him off with a sympathetic mother who hugs him and says it's all right, they'll get him more cards. Johann wishes he could explain that isn't the point, but it's moot; he promises to keep an eye out should he spot the wayward card, and then treks back to the hostel.

He barely gets out of the bandage before his vision turns gray, and he sits on the bed with his head in his hands and wonders how he can watch out for a single card in a city of thousands when he can't even watch out for himself.

But a promise is a promise.

\---------------------------

“Kid, listen. You've got balls. But you're two years too young for this league, and—”

“One,” Johann interrupts. “And I've got the registration fee and I think you're making a mistake.”

“Yeah, you probably do,” says the man at the table. “You know how many kids come in here, thinking they're the next hotshot thing? You're not special.”

Johann squares his shoulders. “You're still wrong.”

The man rolls his eyes and turns back to his paperwork. Johann brings his hand down on the table—not loud enough to bang, but good enough for a solid thud. The man turns his eyes back up, apparently unimpressed.

“You're afraid to even give me a chance to prove I deserve a spot here.”

At last the man's eyebrows go up. Johann wonders if he's about to be offered that chance, or kicked out. The man sighs and jerks a thumb over his shoulder, and Johann sprints past him into the gym before he can change his mind. 

What he decides about Kurt Glöckner's first league in the next ten minutes is simple: everyone in it is an asshole.

They ignore him until the man from registration walks in, and that's not a surprise; they have cards to go through and strategies to fine-tune and a random passerby isn't enough to break their concentration. But then the man from registration shuts the doors with a bang, and they all look up, and when he smacks a hand a little too hard on Johann's shoulder they all start laughing.

“Yo, Lars, you didn't tell us you had a kid sister,” one of the men says, and Johann bites his tongue as hard as he can to keep tears from springing up into his eyes. Lars snorts.

“This kid wants to join the league.” He pulls his hand off Johann's shoulder so quickly Johann sways. “So what about it, kid? Bert's the lowest score in the league right now. Maybe you can draw him.”

_What do I do?_

His deck is silent, and he almost turns to run. Then he hears a snicker from the back of the group and squares his shoulders.

“I'll duel anyone who accepts my challenge.”

A tall man in black stands up. He has a metal stud through his lower lip and a tattoo on the back of his hand, and he isn't smiling.

“I accept.”

There's a low murmur throughout the room. Johann takes the man's deck and shuffles it, hands his over for the same and draws.

His partner is playing a Fusion deck, and Johann struggles not to roll his eyes. On this level, with actual adults training in the hope of reaching the Pro League, underestimating someone for playing Fusion could be fatal.

Johann goes first. His opponent watches him summon and shakes his head in disgust. “Fairies. Jesus.”

Johann looks down at his deck and hides a grin. _If you still love me, let's beat this jerk together. If you still love me . . ._

He jerks his head back up when he hears _I end my turn_ significantly louder than it should be. Now isn't the time to get caught up in his deck, or the silent spirits within it. “My turn,” he says, and draws again.

He's struggling by the third turn, and he knows it; if he can't pull off a miracle, he's in trouble. He ends a turn and arms sweat off his forehead, and then realizes something that stuns him.

The room is silent.

Nobody jeers; nobody laughs. Nobody is yelling for his opponent to wipe the floor with him. He checks the display on his duel disk and almost gasps. 500 Life Points. At any moment he could find himself losing. But his opponent—

His opponent's points are at 700, and Johann doesn't actually remember landing that kind of hit. In fact, he would have said he _couldn't_ land that kind of hit, not with his deck.

_Is my disk malfunctioning?_

He draws, attacks, pulls two cards to set. His opponent attacks, and Johann watches his life points spin to zero.

Much to his surprise, his opponent starts laughing. “You're good,” he says, and crosses the arena space to slap a hand on Johann's shoulder. “But you should pay more attention to your effects, kid. They can be turned against you as easily as you can use them.”

Johann thinks, for a moment, that he's going to be spun around and shown to the registration book to put down his name—sure, he screwed up by not knowing his permanent effects, but that's what training leagues are for, that's the whole point in joining them. Then he realizes they've gone back to ignoring him. “Hey—”

The man named Lars glances up from setting tournament matches for the day, and a single look at his eyes tells Johann he won't be playing in this league. Not today; not next year.

“There's a women's league in the old east side,” he says. “They start at seventeen. But maybe they'll take you.”

Johann doesn't thank them as he walks out and grabs his coat from the pile on a table by the door. He doesn't curse them, either. He waits until he's in an alley several blocks away before slamming both hands into a chipped concrete wall with an angry shriek and bursting into tears. No spirits come to comfort him.

And so he just sits in the alley with his muffler pulled down around his neck and his fingers turning red in a north wind he really ought to have gloves for, wiping away tears until he's fighting for breath against the stupid bandage under his coat. Then he drags himself to his feet.

 _Women's league,_ he thinks, and the thought is bitter as poison.

\---------------------

“And a win for Anderson!”

Johann slots his deck in its holder and walks off the field. There _is_ a field, albeit one modified from an old shuffleboard court, and that's better than the intramural with its classrooms and desks pushed all to the sides, at least. And the league that finally picked him up isn't a women's league, there's that, too. 

It's mixed, but they didn't question the ID with _Anderson, Johann H_ on the front, and he guesses that's as good as he's going to get.

One of the duelmasters waves him over as they clean up for the next match. He's the one Johann nicknamed Thing One for the day. Two of the duelmasters are identical twins, and he still can't tell them apart. “Want to talk to you for a minute,” he says, and Johann grabs his messenger bag before following him out to the corridor.

“Yeah?”

“Question for you, Anderson,” Thing One says. “Why do you duel?”

“I—what?”

Thing One repeats himself. Johann fumbles around for a minute, ready to say something about unity among duelists and strategy, and Thing One holds up a hand.

“I want to know why _you_ duel,” he says. “Not some answer you think would look good in an Academia essay.”

“If I told you the truth, you wouldn't believe me.”

“Try me.”

Johann bites his lip and looks away. “When I was a kid, I used to think I could hear the monsters in my deck talking to me. And eventually I started loving the game for more than just the monsters.”

“Was that before or after you ran off?”

“Wh-what?” He shouldn't stutter, it's only going to give himself away, but he can't help it—it's out before he can help himself. “I don't know what you—”

Thing One waves a hand. “Kurt and I talked about you,” he says. Johann makes a mental note that if Thing One talked to Kurt, then Thing One must be Stefan. “You always show up alone. Nobody ever drops you off. You never talk about school. The holograms are not correct on your ID. You pay for everything in cash and your job, which you are too young to have, is off the books. You have no permanent address and the one listed on your ID is for a bank. The question is not whether you ran away, but why, and whether we should turn you in.”

For a few seconds that seem three years long, Johann can't breathe. Finally he opens his mouth and hopes something good comes out. “I left because I couldn't stay. I would have killed myself.”

Stefan raises an eyebrow at him. “And you think where you are now is so much better?”

And with that, there's air in his lungs again and thoughts in his head. “It's hard, but yeah. It's better.”

“And I should not turn you in because . . . ?”

Johann shrugs. “My parents know I'm alive. They just stopped looking for me.”

“And you think with no home and no education you have a better future than you did there.”

“Nothing's going to stop me from getting into the Europro League. Not even my parents.”

Stefan snorts. “And with no sponsor, how do you intend to make it there?”

“Work my way up through invitationals. People get scouted out of those every day.”

“Yes.” There's a pause so long Johann almost asks if he can go. Then Stefan pulls an envelope out of his pocket. Johann's name, care of his league, is written on the front. The return address is for something called the Laurel Cup Invitational Tournament Organization. Johann thinks he's heard the name before, but he's not sure. If it's not a first-year cup, it's small. “Good luck with that.”

Johann slits open the envelope. Far down the corridor someone in hard-soled shoes is walking toward the locker room, and he can hear shouts from the pool, everything a thousand miles away as he stares down at the invitation in his hand. They probably didn't have his real address, which isn't surprising; he's stopped switching hostels every week and started staying as long as a month, but he's still not easy to find.

Stefan taps the invite. “I'll be keeping an eye on you.”

“Yeah,” Johann says. He's still transfixed by the words printed at the bottom, under the names and dates and places. “Okay.” He shrugs his bag further onto his shoulder. “I'm gonna head out for the day.”

He almost walks straight into the door on his way out. Somewhere behind him he can hear Stefan laughing, and he considers throwing his middle finger in the air before realizing he's got one hand on the door and the invitation in the other, and a great way to give him a _real_ belly laugh would be accidentally flipping it to the floor. He can't stop reading the last sentence, over and over like some kind of mantra.

_The Laurel Cup is proudly sponsored this year by Duelmax, Hama GmbH & Co KG, and Industrial Illusions, Ltd._

\----------------

_I need to pass at a public event in three weeks. Right now I'm binding and layering, but I confuse people and get called 'fraulein' a lot more than I get the right pronouns. Not passing isn't an option. What should I do?_

Johann taps the send button and takes a sip of his Coke before glancing nervously in the direction of the waitress. She's gotten used to his computer time—Tuesdays and Fridays for an hour a night, he's so regular he's practically become part of the furniture—but he still can't help worrying she'll see his screen. There's a reason he always picks the one under the light in the corner, where the glare keeps most people from seeing the site he's on.

The headphones he plugged into the computer let out a chime, and he clicks on the new messages notification.

_Make sure your binder fits right. It should straighten your shoulders a little if it does. Works wonders._

_Binder?_ Johann mouths at the screen, and then remembers he's in public and needs to keep his reactions to himself. He clicks on the message to reply.

_I can't make it much tighter, I'll pass out._

_Wait, are you using a bandage?_

Johann stops with his straw halfway to his mouth as he realizes they can't possibly be talking about the same thing. He hits the refresh button when his messages chime and a gigantic paragraph, sporadically capitalized and heavily misspelled, appears under the question. It starts with _do you have a death wish??????_ followed by a breathless rant on the evils of binding with compression bandages, and ends with a slightly calmer explanation about a piece of clothing Johann never knew existed.

 _Where do you get those??_ Then he frowns at the screen. _And how much are they?_

There's a long pause. Johann hears a loud, whining hum from the kitchen: the milkshake machine, being put into a clean cycle. He's got about fifteen minutes before they kick him out. If there's no reply, he's going to have to wait until Tuesday, and—

Chime.

 _I just checked both sites I used to order from and they're both backordered,_ the message reads. Johann bites his tongue before he can swear. _I had top surgery last year. What's your chest size?_

Johann glances at the waitress. She's frowning and scrubbing a stain by another computer terminal—probably someone who spilled their drink and didn't bother asking for a rag. Then he types in an answer and clicks _send._

The chime is almost instantaneous.

_You're not that much smaller than me. I can send you a couple of starters, if you want. You'll need to measure yourself for a better one, but it should be enough to see you through your event. AND STOP USING BANDAGES. Even if it means you can't bind. It's not worth it._

Johann hesitates. Then he clicks the little mail icon next to the name.

“We're closing,” says a voice from just behind his shoulder, and he jumps. The waitress is behind him, her rag still in her hand. “You'll have to log out.”

“Okay,” he says. “Just a second, I have to send this. I'll be quick, I promise.”

She frowns, but he's a regular and he doesn't make trouble, and after a moment she sets to wiping down the keyboard next to his. Johann taps out his address and sends it off with an apologetic _cafe's closing, I won't be on for a couple of days. I've got work_ added on. Then he picks up his bill and fishes his change out of his pocket--three two-euro coins, a handful of pfennige--no, euro cents--and a single stray five-mark coin. Johann wonders idly where he got it before he decides to leave it next to his monitor with a pair of fifty-cent coins. It comes out to about a third of his bill after the exchange rate. He thinks. Not a terrible tip, anyway. It might be a little high, but keeping track of exactly how many euros five marks equals isn't something high on his priority list.

He stops in a McDonald's halfway back to the hostel and pulls off the bandage around his chest. The panicked flailing post about his binding included the phrase _ineligible for top surgery_ , and he's not willing to risk it. Instead he stuffs the bandage into his messenger bag and hopes his shirt is loose enough to cover him. Even the worst days, when the face in his mirror might as well belong to a complete stranger, aren't worth that.

He's on his way out of the toilet when he smacks directly into someone's chest and gets an angry grunt.

“What were you doing in there?”

Johann considers putting his hands on his hips and saying he has every right to a piss in private. Then he sizes up the man in front of him—twice his size, broad-chested, hands like a gorilla—and rubs the back of his neck, instead.

“Walked in the wrong door, sorry,” he says, and doesn't bother trying to pitch his voice down even as his stomach flips over. “I guess I was thinking too hard about something else.”

The man lets out another angry grunt and pushes past him. Johann waits til the door swings shut with a pneumatic wheeze, then ducks out the side door as fast as he can go. There's usually a food cart a couple of blocks from his hostel, and the food there isn't the greatest, but it doesn't come with a side order of possibly getting his head beaten in.

He just hopes it doesn't mean losing another place to stay.

\--------------

“Anderson! Package for you!”

Johann tugs his jacket more tightly around his front, perversely glad he's supposed to be working outside today. “Nadja, I'm going to be late—”

“I won't be here later, so if you want it, you'd better get it now,” the landlady warns. Then she turns the box in her hands. “Who do you know in Hamburg? I thought you were from Munich.”

_Hamburg._

“Uncle,” he says. “My mum's brother. Can I see that?”

“I thought you were going to be late from work!” Nadja calls after him as he takes off back down the hallway. 

“It's probably perishable!” he yells back, and unlocks his door. He's barely got it shut again before he's tearing into the tape with his keys. 

There's a pile of fabric inside, and he tips it out over the bed. Three off-white shirts that remind him of vests, a plastic . . . _thing_ he doesn't have the time to examine, two long-sleeved tee-shirts and a letter. Johann flips open the notebook paper it's written on and scans it. The vests are binders. They should fit tightly. He should still be able to breathe. So far, so good, and he yanks off his shirt to pull one on.

Then he forgets all about how he's going to have to run to get to work on time, staring in shock at his own flat chest in the mirror. 

It's not perfect—he's already hot, and still all too aware of what it's holding in—but there's no comparison to the bandage. The foreman who oversees his team might not even recognize him.

_Foreman! Shit!_

He scoops up the contents of the box and dumps them in a bureau drawer before taking off again; there's a bus at the corner, and he doesn't really want to spend the fare, but he has to make up the time he spent examining the magical new thing under his shirt. 

“Anderson!” is the first thing he hears when he gets off the bus, and he sprints across the parking lot to the shed. Klein—his foreman—gives him a hard look.

“Sorry,” he manages, and dumps his bag in a corner of the shed. “I thought it was Sunday and when I realized I'd—”

Klein waves him off, then squints at him. “What'd you do, new haircut?”

Johann shakes his head. “No?”

Klein grunts and jerks his head at a bucket. Johann wants to groan; it's the hand bucket. He'll be dealing with the shrubbery—and all the creepy critters in the shrubbery. His own fault for being late; nobody likes the hand bucket, if they can avoid it.

He pulls on the thick work gloves in the bucket and heads out onto the school grounds to start on the unruly hedge of greenery out front. When he started this job at the beginning of the school year he was told maintenance over the summer was almost impossible because of building renovations; they're paying for it now.

Klein walks up behind him as he knocks yet another spider off his gloves. “What'd you do, get laid?”

“Huh?” Johann looks up so fast he falls out of his crouch and onto his butt. Klein thinks he's seventeen. Johann hasn't corrected him. “Nah, not me.”

“Then what the hell is up with you over here singing during class hours?”

Johann feels stung; he's not loud. Then he's stunned. “I was singing?”

“And I wouldn't try out for Deutschland sucht den Superstar, either, if I were you.”

Johann ignores the insult. The joke on the team is that being nice never killed anybody, but Klein doesn't want to take chances. “Just having a good day, that's all.”

“One hell of a good day,” Klein says. “Keep it down.”

Johann nods and turns back to the bushes.

“Hey. Anderson.”

“Yeah?”

“You been working out?”

He hasn't, but he walks everywhere and whenever he finds a group playing football he tries to join, so he shrugs. “A little.”

“I can tell. You're losing the pudge.”

Johann waits until Klein heads off to find someone else to abuse before he grins into the shrubbery, spiders and all. He's not chubby; if anything, he could probably stand to gain some weight. He knows exactly what Klein's talking about, and that it was meant as an insult. It doesn't bother him a bit.

Being nice might never have killed anybody, but Klein took one hell of a risk.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johann is on his way up. He's going to have to hope nobody drags him back down.

“Johann Anderson?”

Johann looks up from his geometry book. It's in English—the hazard, he supposes, of buying from a secondhand shop—but he's been following it all right so far. The woman in front of him has blonde hair pulled up in a bun so tight Johann can't imagine how it doesn't fall out in clumps when she finally lets it down. 

“Yes?”

“You're next.” She hands him three sheets of paper. The name across the top of the first one is Josef Chojnacki. Eighteen years old, originally from Warsaw and participating in the Laurel Cup as a longtime resident of Hamburg. The rest of the papers are a dossier of his performance in the cup—which decks he's used, notes about his typical strategy, key cards that appear across both of his decks and strategies common to the deck type. On day one, these dossiers were a maximum of half a page long, and the two people Johann's already dueled today seemed extraordinarily unnerved by his remaining at a relatively short length. The longest he's seen was six pages. The most recent copy of his own, discarded in disgust by someone else in the greenroom, barely makes a page. As far as he can tell, he's the only person in the entire tournament using a single deck.

He steps into the hall and tries to tidy his appearance. He only owns a single shirt that hasn't been chewed to pieces by his job, and he feels horribly under-dressed; everyone else is dressed casually, but in clothes that were clearly new when their current owners bought them. He takes a deep breath and heads for the lift at the end of the hall.

_Johann!_

_Jungeschen!_

Johann stops mid-stride, mouth falling open. _It couldn't be._

He turns his head to the right, so slowly he swears he can hear the creak of every tendon. Shining Friendship is hovering right in front of his face.

“You came back!” The words, meant to be joyful, come out in barely a whisper, and Johann very nearly sags against the wall. “Why—”

He feels a hand on his shoulder, too light to belong to an actual human being. “It's been time for us to go for a very long time,” says a low and melodious woman's voice, and for a moment Johann experiences complete total recall: the younger version of himself in neatly-cuffed jeans and clean white socks, sorting his new cards at the kitchen table and swinging his legs in and out of the bar of sunlight from the kitchen door. "We need to say goodbye, Johann."

"But—!"

The hand leaves his shoulder, and he stares up into Guardian Angel Joan's face before he can start crying. She smiles down at him.

“You won't be alone,” she says, and looks at the lift. “We'll have this one last duel together, and then the future is up to you.”

“But—”

 _It's time to go, Jungeschen,_ Shining Friendship says, and Johann wipes his eyes on his too-long sleeve before he heads for the lift.

He can hear the sounds from the arena before he even makes it to the top floor; people yelling and cheering. Most of the cheers are for his opponent, apparently a Laurel Cup veteran, and Johann stops in the hallway outside the loading area, heart in his throat and stomach practicing for an Olympic gymnastics gold medal. 

“I can't,” he says, voice so low and hoarse he sounds like he's recovering from the flu. “I can't—”

“Yes, you can,” Joan says. “You won't be alone. We'll go together.”

“How do I know—” Johann bites his tongue, hard, and hopes she mistakes it as the reason for the tears in his eyes. He could ask, but even asking feels like danger. Joan puts both of her hands, translucent and barely felt, on Johann's shoulders.

“I'm sorry, _Jungeschen,_ ” she says. “It was the only way. Had we spoken to you before, you would have gone back, and been worse for it.” She runs a hand over his hair, and then she's gone. Johann closes his eyes, hard, and forces his tears back. In a better and fairer world, his parents would be sitting in the front row—no. Not both of them, probably, not for a relatively small tournament like this, but his father would be. Probably wearing a sport jacket awkwardly over his work shirt, and some embarrassing piece of clothing meant as support—almost certainly something violently purple and at terrible odds with his hair. Johann remembers the day he picked out the color for his bedroom walls and his father just chuckling and dabbing a dot of paint on the end of his nose, and challenging him to a game of painted purple tic-tac-toe that covered half the wall. His mother hated it, said it made the room look too small, and accepted it only on the condition that one wall stay cream.

Johann wonders if she's painted over the purple yet. Then he presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and takes a deep breath and pushes open the door into the loading area. There are four people on the other side, all but one wearing headsets and one of the three carrying a clipboard. The one with no headset starts dusting powder over his forehead and cheeks; another one is saying things into his headset like _Anderson in loading_ and _sound check four_. 

The third one tells him to take off his shirt, and Johann feels his breath leave in a rush.

“Excuse me?”

“I have to tape your mic.”

“Why do I need a microphone?”

The tech starts a staring match. Johann squirms.

“Can I leave my undershirt on?”

“If you don't care about tape marks.”

“I don't.” 

The tech spins her hand in a circle— _get on with it._ Johann bites his lip, then pulls off the long-sleeved tee on top of the short-sleeved one. The tech clips a black box onto his belt, tapes the wire in two places, and then sticks a finger under the strap of Johann's binder. The world shrinks down to a pinpoint. _She knows what it is. She's going to tell them. They're going to know I'm—_

“Hey!”

“Sorry!” Johann jerks his head up. “Sorry, I was thinking, what—”

“This is medical?” The tech taps the strap of the binder again. Johann doesn't hesitate.

“Yes.”

“Is it safe to tape it?”

“Yes.”

“Come on, come on,” says the man with the clipboard. Johann feels a wire run behind his ear, and then there's something clipped over the cup of it—a small wire arm that extends in front of his face, and a hard plastic piece right against the inside of his ear. The man who powdered his face runs his hands through the back of Johann's hair to fix it over the wire, and the man with the clipboard pushes him toward the doors.

They open, and the faint dull cheering he could hear from the lift becomes a deafening roar. He holds up a casual hand— _hi, guys_ —like he's seen some of the other duelists do from the screen downstairs, but doesn't actually scan the crowd.

If he doesn't look, and doesn't listen too closely, he can pretend one of the voices yelling _Anderson_ is his father. 

\----------------------

“The winner! And new reigning champion of the Laurel Cup! Johann Anderson!”

Johann takes his deck out of his disk, feeling oddly like he's not actually himself—almost, he thinks, like someone _else_ is Johann Anderson, and he's sitting in the back of their head watching them slip their deck into its holder and power down their duel disk and turn back toward the loading area. 

Then a slim man with a jaw like a bulldog and a very expensive-looking black suit strides out of a side door so smoothly he might be on wheels, and Johann crashes back into himself. No time for fantasies about being a tiny person watching a much larger person on some kind of mental TV; the man doesn't smile, and is very large, and—Johann feels his eyes widen, and couldn't stop it if he had to stop or die—has an extremely large gun strapped to one hip.

“Johann Anderson,” the man says. It isn't a question. “Come with me.”

Johann takes a deep breath. He won't stutter. He _can't_ stutter. “Is there a problem?”

“I've been asked to escort you,” he says, and Johann is pretty sure he could keep asking for years and not get more of an answer. He looks around the arena—at people sweeping up their popcorn and crisps and water bottles, at children pointing at the LED screens and images from Johann's deck, at the crew coming out to wash down the duel field—and then follows after the man with the gun.

“Who asked you to get me?” 

He doesn't expect an answer, and he's not disappointed. But he's also not left wondering for long—they turn a corner, and then another, and then halfway down the hall Johann sees a man he could probably pick out of a crowd of thousands. Long thin nose, sweeping white hair, narrow shoulders, the only thing Johann doubts is his own eyes. Pegasus Crawford wouldn't be at a tournament this small, even one his company sponsored. Industrial Illusions says right on its website they sponsor over a hundred tournaments worldwide every year.

“Johann Anderson!” 

The singsong voice, rather than the appearance, is what convinces him. Maybe he's dreaming, but he's not hallucinating; there can only be one man with a voice like that. Pegasus holds out a hand, and Johann is so startled he almost doesn't shake it. 

“I've been waiting for this day,” Pegasus says, and Johann blinks at him. Three weeks ago he was training in a public gymnasium. Surely Pegasus can't mean he anticipated watching Johann duel; there are thousands of kids all over the world just like him. “Please, come with me, if you would!”

The man with the gun and the expensive black suit stays in the hall as Pegasus leads Johann through a door, down a flight of stairs, and into a short tunnel before steering him into a room with a barely-visible door. Johann hesitates on the close side of it; tabloids will publish anything, and he doesn't like to think poorly of anyone—especially a man whose existence has already changed his life—on the basis of what might be only rumors, but there are quite a _lot_ of rumors, and Johann is suddenly incredibly aware he was just peeled away from the entire group of entrants and out through a part of the arena they're not even supposed to be able to access. Pegasus motions at him from the other side of the door to come through, and finally Johann does—into a plush room with deep carpets and a minibar and plenty of other things he wouldn't expect to find in a maintenance tunnel. The door doesn't lock behind him, and he lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

“Johann Anderson,” he says again, and Johann enjoys when people say his name with such confidence, but the whole thing is getting just surreal enough to creep him out. “Please. Take a seat, won't you?”

“Thank you, Mr. Crawford, but I'd rather stand. I've been sitting all morning.”

Pegasus laughs so loudly Johann thinks he might hurt himself. “Please! Away with the formalities! Among duelists, I am Pegasus. And I appreciate the time you've spent, but we _must_ talk before you can understand why I've asked you to come here. A chair, won't you?”

Johann bites his tongue before he can say _I was ordered by a man with a gun, that's not really asking_ and sits on the edge of a chair. Pegasus flops into the one across from him with a calculated air of carelessness before sitting forward.

“Tell me, Johann, my boy, what do you know of this game you play? Not its rules or customs, you clearly know both quite well to be invited to a national Cup! But what do you know of its origins?”

Johann almost stutters on his answer, the question is so unexpected. “I—know it started based on paintings you found in a pharaoh's tomb,” he says. “And there are rumors Yuugi Mutou wasn't just a duelist. That he and that tomb were connected somehow, and—” Johann bites his lip. “That it isn't just a game. That you actually found something—spiritual, or magical, or something—and the game is based on that.”

“Indeed,” Pegasus says. Johann wishes both his eyes were uncovered. Looking at just the one is incredibly unnerving. “Those rumors are _so_ overblown. Just a touch too much drama, don't you think? And yet there's some truth buried in them.” He stands up, and Johann scrambles to his feet. “What I have discovered in the last eight years I've been producing Duel Monsters, Johann, my boy, is that this world is full of holes. You see?”

“ . . . . holes?”

“Yes! Portals into dimensions other than our own. Glimpses of things science is, as yet, unable to explain, and perhaps may find itself always so—you understand? Pieces of the magic so common in ancient folktales, still existing and simply no longer invoked. These things can be found in all odd corners of the world, Johann, my boy, and it is because of one such thing I have brought you here today. Follow me, won't you?”

Johann does. He's no longer wondering if Pegasus lured him under the arena because he has a penchant for young boys, but he is starting to wonder if perhaps Pegasus isn't entirely sane. Pegasus waves a hand at the room.

“It isn't quite what you'd expect in a place like this, is it?” he says. “This room was commissioned by Seto Kaiba before a duel in 1995. He won the international championship here, before the game was truly introduced to Japan.”

“It's pretty nice.”

“It is, isn't it? There.” Pegasus gestures grandly at the top of the minibar, and Johann realizes there are slabs of colored glass set up along the top of it. “Representations of a grandeur fallen centuries ago. The seven gems of Julius Caesar, do you know them?”

Johann's mouth falls open. “Are those—are those _Gem Beast prototypes_?”

“Not prototypes, Johann, my boy. There is only one of each card, as only one of each gem, you see? But like those cards you invoked when you spoke of Yuugi Mutou, these are _special_ cards. Only the correct person can control them. Even I, who found the stones and set out to bring the legend back to life, am unable to play them! And yet, Johann, my boy, when you dueled today I saw the light shining from these cards, and heard the very voice of the deck cry out, and knew at once I must bring you to see them—you see?”

Johann shakes his head, but his eyes never leave the slabs of glass. “But if there's only one of each—”

“See,” Pegasus says. “Won't you?”

Johann takes a step forward. The feeling he had on the arena floor is back, and twice as strong. He watches Johann's feet take another step, and watches Johann's hand reach for one of the pieces of glass, and watches in no small amount of awe as it melts away under the brush of Johann's fingers; feels Johann's head turn as a barely-perceptible weight comes into being on his shoulder and slowly takes shape. It looks like some kind of cat, he thinks, and then behind Johann he hears Pegasus say _Jesus, Johann, my boy!_ and feels Pegasus clap a hand on Johann's shoulder. The touch is so unexpected Johann jumps.

A nose that isn't actually cool or damp bumps Johann's hand, and then he's all together again—it's _his_ hand, and the nose belongs to a much larger actually-a-cat. 

_Duel spirits!_

And then he feels a slight weight in his left hand, and looks down to see a deck sitting in it. Not his own; the duel disks at the Laurel Cup are new enough to read through thin protectors, and the backs of Johann's cards should be violet instead of brown. He turns the deck over and sees a card on the bottom that says _Gem Beast Ruby Carbuncle_ and almost drops it trying to find Pegasus to hand it back. Pegasus is laughing.

“No, no, no, Johann, my boy,” he says. “This deck is _yours_ , you see?”

“But I don't—” But he _does_. He does see, and he does want it. This must be the reason Guardian Angel Joan and Shining Friendship came to see him off; they must have known. “I read an article last year about the Gem Beasts, they're priceless,” he says at last. “It'd be an honor to play them, but I can't afford a deck like this, Mr.—Pegasus.”

Pegasus waves a hand in a one-armed shrug. “What can I do? These cards are meant for _you_ , Johann, my boy. To withhold them now would only be to delay the date at which they finally came into your hands, you see?”

 _Johann, hmm?_ The voice belongs to a woman, and almost sounds like it's flirting with him. The nose bumps his hand again. _Amethyst Cat. It's a pleasure to meet you at last._

“I—no. But thank you. I don't know how to say how much—”

Pegasus waves a hand. “Use them well, and wisely, and between yourself and myself, Johann, my boy, I think you know just a _bit_ more about this game that isn't just a game than most of even its best players, do you not?”

Johann meets the eye he can see. For the first time in this entire conversation he thinks he knows what Pegasus is talking about. “I think I might.”

“Then I will tell you this, Johann, my boy,” Pegasus says. “There is one card left to complete this deck. There are the seven stones—of course. But what are the stones without the setting? That most common of stones, a simple piece of limestone, and yet it promised to showcase the most fabulous of treasures. I still search for that tablet, Johann, my boy. And when I find it, the final piece will be in place.”

“A card from the engraving on the tablet?”

“Precisely. And when that day comes, I shall give it to you. But keep it a secret between us for now, shall we?”

Johann nods. Pegasus shows him back out into the hall. “And now, I think, it's high time you go see your fans.”

“I—right. Thank you. Again.”

“Most certainly, Johann, my boy. Should you ever notice anything _unusual_ about the deck, I do hope you'll tell me, won't you?”

“Definitely,” Johann says, and it's not until Pegasus is gone that he realizes he doesn't actually have a way to tell him anything. Maybe Pegasus has him on some kind of “call I2, say the passcode” shortlist, or will.

_Rubi, rubi?_

Johann's startled to find he understands the little spirit perfectly. “You bet. I think I—”

The little girl is maybe seven years old, and wearing a man's sweater as a dress. The sleeves are rolled up and safety-pinned, but even as Johann watches one of them flops back down over her hand again. He walks up to her and gets to one knee.

“Hi,” he says, and she looks up at him with the corners of her mouth and eyes turned down. “What's your name?”

There's a long pause, and he almost tries the question again in English before she mumbles _Sophie._ Johann sticks a hand behind him and feels the deck sitting in his worn leather holder. Someone in it, he's not sure who, is just about vibrating with excitement.

“Sophie, huh? Do you like to duel?”

She shrugs. Johann tries to keep his face neutral. “Do you think you'd like dueling a little more if you had a deck?”

Sophie's eyes light up, and she nods before launching into child-babble about watching parts of the Laurel Cup from one of the TV screens outside the arena. Johann slips the deck that isn't really his anymore out of the holder.

“Tell you what,” he says. “Can I ask you a favor?”

She gives him a funny look, and he holds out the deck. “Can you take good care of these for me? They're really special to me, but I think they should go with you now.”

He feels a woman's hand on his shoulder one last time, and smiles.

 _She's a good choice,_ Guardian Angel Joan says, as Sophie takes the deck solemnly from Johann's hand with both of her own and clutches it to her chest. _Goodbye and good luck, Jungeschen._

Johann slips the Gem Beasts into his deck holder and stands up as Sophie runs to tug on a man's hand. Probably her dad, he thinks, watching how she pulls on the hem of his sweater.

“Goodbye,” he murmurs, surprised to find how little it hurts to let go. “Take care of her.”

_We will._

\------------------------

“Johann! Phone for you!”

Johann groans and rolls over to cast a single baleful eye at his alarm clock. 6:19am. If it's Klein, he's going to quit on the spot.

“Johann, my boy, how _are_ you doing?”

The voice is familiar, but the context is all wrong, and Johann only manages a sleepy _unh?_ before the voice asks him what time it is.

“Just after six.” And then the voice clicks. “Pegasus?”

“Indeed! I do apologize, Johann, my boy, should I call tomorrow?”

Johann swipes an arm across his eyes. Then he remembers Pegasus lives in California. Of course. He doesn't remember what time it is there, but “some time last night” should cover it.

“No, it's fine, I'm awake now.” He pours himself a coffee from the urn the staff keep behind the counter. Strictly speaking it's for Nadja and her people, but he's pretty sure they won't miss a single cup. “What's going on?”

There's a pause, and when Pegasus speaks again a great deal of the brightness is gone from his voice. “Johann, my boy . . . I'm so very sorry.”

_Rubi?_

Johann puts a hand over the deck in his pocket. Even just leaving his room to use the toilet he hasn't been able to leave it alone. “What for?”

“I had assumed your family was unable to attend the Laurel Cup,” Pegasus says. “I wanted to congratulate them.”

Johann's hand stops scant centimetres from his coffee. His fingertips feel numb, and when he speaks his own voice seems to be coming from far down the tiled corridor at the training center.

“I don't have a family.”

“Your parents live in Ingolstadt,” Pegasus says. “I attempted to impress on them the magnitude of your achievements, Johann, my boy, but I am afraid their priorities . . . lie elsewhere.”

Johann wants to speak, but can't make his mouth open and doesn't have the slightest idea what he'd say if it did. He can hear Pegasus' voice, but the words don't come clearly, and the hollow whine of a transatlantic call doesn't help.

“I'm sorry,” he manages at last, cutting Pegasus off midstream. His voice comes out in a hoarse whisper that bears no resemblance to his own.

“Johann, my boy—”

“You don't have to call me that.” He swipes his arm across his eyes again. Maybe his parents will let him keep his new deck, even if he's not permitted to duel. He wonders if he can stand three more years of dresses. Maybe they'll commit him to an institution. 

“Is there something else you would prefer I call you?”

_Rubi?_

And then Johann is sobbing so hard he slides down the wall to sit with the phone dangling between his shoulder and his knees, taking in air in great ugly gasps. Amethyst Cat appears in front of him and does her best to nuzzle his face. He reaches up to pet her before remembering they can't actually touch. 

At last he feels his breath slow, and drags himself slowly to first one knee and then his feet to hang up the phone. He should pack his things. Maybe he can at least sneak his binders back into Ingolstadt.

He hears a sudden noise on the other end of the phone when it's only a few centimeters from the cradle, and puts it numbly to his ear. He expected the annoying _da-da-da-da-da_ of a phone line left open and hanging for too long. Instead, there's a voice.

“Johann, my boy?”

“Oh my god,” he manages, and gropes around for the tissue box Katrina keeps for her allergies. “You're still here?”

“But of course. I do regret giving you such bad news so early.” Johann is amazed to realize he sounds like he means it. “If there's any way I can assist you, please don't hesitate to ask me.”

Johann squeezes his deck and feels the edges of the cards dig into his fingers. “I think you should probably—” He swallows around the lump in his throat. “I think you should probably take the Gem Beasts back. My mother found out I was dueling under this name and trashed my room. I lost a lot of cards and I wouldn't want to lose these ones too.” He blinks as hard as he can, but tears still roll down his cheeks. Ruby chitters at him, distressed. “You were right, they're really something.”

Pegasus makes an _mm_ sound into the phone. “Yes, that would be a tragedy. So you do plan to return home, then?”

“I don't have a choice, do I?”

There's a pause so long Johann thinks the call must have disconnected, and when Pegasus speaks he jumps. “I may be the wrong person to ask for this advice, Johann, my boy,” he says. “But it seems to me, if your home was so inhospitable to you, that perhaps you should research the possibility of filing for emancipation.”

“I don't know what that is.”

“When a minor is declared by the court to be capable of supporting himself, and no longer his parents' responsibility. Or herself, as the case may be, although that's hardly relevant, is it?”

Johann wipes his eyes again. He's going to have to buy Katrina a new box of tissues. “I don't think they'd let me. I'm not even in school.”

“What was your exam score for the Duel Academia?”

“I couldn't sit the exam. I haven't got my birth certificate and even if I did North School wouldn't take me because . . . you know.”

There's another _mm_. “Under other circumstances, would you have?”

“Are you kidding?” Johann sips his coffee at long last. He's starting to be thirsty. “North School opened when I was nine and I'd wanted to go ever since.”

“Allow me to make a call.”

Johann feels his mouth drop open. Then he shuts it. “Why are you being this nice to somebody you don't know?”

“Because of the conversation we had at the Laurel Cup, Johann, my boy. You are remarkable. Perhaps indispensable. I should hate to see your talents go to waste.”

“I don't mean to be disrespectful, Pegasus, but Duel Monsters is—it's a _game_. Anybody can learn to play it if they have time and someone to teach them.”

“Yes,” Pegasus agrees. “But—forgive me for mentioning it—when I spoke with your mother, she seemed quite positive that nobody had ever taught _you._ ”

Johann opens his mouth to say that of course someone taught him. Then he stops.

 _Who_ did _teach me?_

This time the _mm_ from the other end almost sounds like a chuckle. “A call, Johann, my boy,” he says. “Perhaps two. I would suggest you research the possibilities for your future. Put together your case, if you intend to fight. Expect to hear from me this evening.”

The phone clicks. Johann stares down at the receiver. Then he calls Klein and says he's got a fever and can't come to work. He's still hot from crying, so strictly speaking he's much warmer than he ought to be and it's not exactly a lie. 

Then he takes a nap. When he gets up, he leaves his three euros on the counter for his phone calls and goes directly to the Internet cafe.

He's going to have to hope youth services isn't waiting in his room when he gets back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Given my inability to update at more than a snail's pace these days, readers with anxiety may find it useful to have the following relatively minor spoiler for the chapter to follow:
> 
>  
> 
> No, Johann is not going to be pushed back into the closet. (Which is not to say he gets everything he wants, but his days of being Fraulein Anderson are over.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rejoining the world takes a lot of paperwork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> German readers (or readers who have lived in Germany) may notice right away that there is no real-world equivalent to the legal arrangement Johann enters in this chapter, and that a more likely real-world solution would be his entry into foster care. There are plot-related reasons for this in a couple of chapters. In the meantime thanks are owed to [Sethy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sethy/pseuds/Sethy) for her excellent theory about the background world of YGO, which contributed heavily to this chapter (and also Johann's entry into social services).
> 
>  
> 
> Minor warnings for misgendering in this chapter.

“Johann, my boy!”

Johann runs full tilt through the door Pegasus is holding open, then strips off his gloves and blows on his fingers. This kind of cold, he thinks, should be illegal.

It's a gymnasium not so different from the one he trains in, but this one feels smaller. Too small. Child-sized. Johann's never been prone to claustrophobia, but he's pretty sure that's what people call it when a room the size of a large courtyard seems to be pressing down on all sides like an isolation cell. Pegasus waves Johann into the locker room. There's a Funny Bunny backpack sitting on one of the benches, and Johann has to suppress a nervous giggle; it looks childish and out of place next to the one he plops down beside it. Pegasus unzips the cartoon backpack and hands it to him.

“Everything you need is inside, you see?” he says, and Johann sits down. Somewhere in the other half of the locker room he can hear a shower dripping. “As your sponsor I'm unable to sit in today, but I will be eagerly awaiting your results. I expect great things of you, Johann, my boy.”

“So do I.”

Pegasus laughs, then shows himself out. Johann waits to be sure he's completely alone before peeking in the top of the bag.

There's a folder inside that has a copy of the North School application he filled out at a table in the Kochlöffel near the hostel while he ate his dinner. It's tucked behind a copy of his immunization record and the birth certificate with the name that isn't actually his, a note scribbled in the margin of the copy indicating the two records belong with this file. The other side of the folder is all proofs—score records from his training league, a program from the Laurel Cup with a matching bracket record inside, the essay on dueling theory he frantically transcribed from notebook to computer screen in a mad race with the clock at the Internet cafe, the scoresheet from his written exam. There's a 381 written at the bottom of it, and he assumes someone must have graded it, but what the numbers and notations mean he has no idea. In front of it is a blank sheet—the grading rubric for his duel exam, still empty and awaiting notes from his proctor at today's duel.

Under the folder, beside one of the new third-party duel disks that have a sliding playfield, is a new pack of deck protectors. Pegasus must have taken note of the ones on Johann's old deck, but unlike Johann's flimsy purple-backed PVC protectors these are clear on both sides, the plastic reinforced at the seams with a thin strip of metal. They're DuelMax tech—Johann knows without even seeking out the little trademark stamped in each top right corner. He runs a thumb over their edges and promises himself he'll put them on only if he walks out of here with the little pin in hand that features the North School logo. Then he puts them in his own bag.

At the bottom of the bag is a shirt, and Johann glances nervously around the locker room before pulling it out and struggling out of the shabby long-sleeved tee-shirt he showed up in. It just about has to belong to Pegasus—the ruffled sleeves cover his hands up to the fingers, and he's not actually sure if there's enough space in his jeans to tuck in the tails neatly—but it still looks better than anything in his drawer, and once he tucks the collar under his binder straps it stays in place well enough to not show off his chest, at least. He rolls up the Funny Bunny bag and puts it inside his own. Finally he picks up the duel disk and puts it on. 

In the gym, the lights are only half on. One of them flickers and lets out a high, steady hum. Johann calls “I'm here,” and then flinches back from the sound of his own voice. There's a small group in the bleachers, and they look up almost in perfect unison at the sound of Johann's voice echoing back from the rafters. One is a man who looks like somebody's grandfather; the other two men look like they might be in their forties or so.

“Johann Anderson?” one of the fortyish ones says, and Johann crosses at a pace not quite a jog to stand in front of them.

“Yes, sir.”

The man who spoke to him stands and slips out the small door between the bleachers and the gym floor before holding out a hand.

“Dr. Lars Pedersen. I'll be your proctor today.”

Johann shakes his hand, then pulls out his admissions folder. “I think I'm supposed to give you this . . . ?”

Dr. Pedersen chuckles, takes the folder, and hands it to the man who looks like a grandfather. “You can leave your bag here.”

Johann slips his bag off his shoulder, and Dr. Pedersen holds out a single hand for it before setting it neatly on the other side of the wall between bleachers and gym. He nods Johann toward the basketball half-court.

“The Solid Vision system in this building is built into the floor,” he says, and takes a duel disk from the other fortyish examiner. “You'll need to stay between the in-bounds lines for it to activate.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dr. Pedersen meets him at the center line, and Johann takes his deck with no small amount of trepidation. In his fantasies about trying out for Duel Academia, he never had stage fright like this. 

They shuffle each others' decks, pass them back, take places at opposite foul lines before Dr. Pedersen tells Johann he'll be taking the first turn whenever he's ready to draw. Johann nods.

_Get it together, Anderson, you won a national tournament two months ago!_

_Be kind to yourself, Johann,_ a rumbly voice says in a place that isn't exactly his ear. _You know you have the skill to do this._

“Thanks, Mammoth,” he mumbles, hoping Dr. Pedersen won't hear. Then he reaches for the top card in his deck. It's too late to back out now, when he can look across the court and see a bright green folder with his test scores and essay and birth certificate—

 _Where did Pegasus_ get _my birth certificate? Mum kept all that stuff in Dad's office._

He feels his mouth drop open.

_But if Mum had it, and Pegasus has it now—_

“Johann?”

Johann gasps and pulls a card a little too hard. “I draw!” He flips it over. A trap card. No big deal; his opening hand has Sapphire Pegasus in it, and he plays almost without thought.

_She had to have given it to him. And she wouldn't have given it to him so I could sit the exam unless she really believed I could do it, and she's the one who told me North School was boys-onl—_

“I end my turn.”

Johann bites his tongue and studies Dr. Pedersen's play. He can't let his mind wander; he _can't_. Not with Pegasus waiting for him outside. And would his mother really have given up his birth certificate so easily? 

“My turn,” he says. “I draw.” Nothing good in his hand, and he sets two cards before ending his turn.

_She would've never given it to anyone else. She didn't even want to let them take it to the back room to copy when I started kindergarten._

_Mum's outside._

On the field opposite him, Dr. Pedersen uses an effect. A monster, two tokens, two set cards. He's good. Johann doesn't remember reading anything online that suggested exam decks should even be able to produce tokens. Johann fights down panic.

_She's here, she's here, she's going to pull me out of here and take me back—_

_Then wouldn't she have before she let you sit the exam?_

_Yeah, but—_

And then he remembers Pegasus' words from their telephone conversation: _I attempted to impress on them the magnitude of your achievements, Johann, my boy, but I am afraid their priorities lie elsewhere._

Except, he thinks. His mother has all the stubbornness of an oak tree standing through a hurricane, but his father has all the persistence of a river current, and at least humored Johann's declarations about joining the pro circuit.

“My turn,” Johann says. His voice shakes, and he hopes Dr. Pedersen doesn't mistake it for fear this time. Fear might count against him, but excitement is another story entirely. “I draw.”

Another six turns decide the whole duel—one well-placed Ruby Carbuncle and a counter-trap later and Johann takes it, 300 to zero. There's a murmur from one of the men in the stands. Dr. Pedersen nods Johann to another section of the bleachers to sit, and he does.

 _I've got almost sixty euros I didn't budget yet from that painting job Klein gave me, we can go to dinner somewhere nice,_ Johann thinks. His heart is beating so hard he thinks it might jump out of his chest and fly away, and he breathes through his mouth to calm it. The hostel he stays at is students-only, but he's pretty sure if he explains to Nadja she'll let him have a guest for one night. They can go back to Ingolstadt by the morning train. He'll probably end up getting dragged to his mother's painting class, it's a Thursday and she won't want to lose sight of him so quickly, but even a stool at the painting class is mild penance for the idea of one of her students saying _haven't I seen him on television?_ and hearing his mother say _that's my son, he's starting the Duel Academia at the half-term. You might have seen him if you watched the Laurel Cup._ She's probably going to start calling him Hanschen; he's pretty sure when he's old enough for a cane and a hearing aid she'll still be calling him little-something-or-other. He passes the idea through his head and decides Hanschen is okay. It's better than Mauschen, anyway. 

The examiner who looks like a grandfather holds up a hand, and Johann hops off the bleachers to cross the floor. The third examiner meets him at the stairs. There's something in his hand, and Johann's heart starts hammering away again.

“Congratulations, Herr Anderson,” grandpa-examiner says, and slips two fingers into Johann's lapel just long enough to pin something there. “Provided your performance is consistent in your trial duels, you're a member of Black House.”

Johann nods. The examiner says something about his supply list, and the mail, and uniforms; there's something about being sure his deck is in order for the trial duels, and he's probably going to have to ask his mother to call the school to find out what he needs because absolutely nothing is sinking in, and then he's dismissed. He gets half a dozen paces away before he remembers Pegasus' bag, sitting inside his own, and grabs it before sprinting across the floor, straightarming the door and bolting through. Somewhere on the other side is someone he hasn't seen in over a year, and until they were this close again he had no idea he'd missed her hugs so much.

“I did it, I did it, I'm in Black House, they said I—!”

Pegasus is standing alone in the foyer, and Johann blinks in confusion. _Great time for Mum to use the loo,_ he thinks, but reality made it to his head before his heart is even ready to say hello.

She's not there.

“Johann, my boy!” he hears Pegasus say instead, and he plasters on a smile he hopes won't look as fake as it feels. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” He swings his bag off his shoulder to pull out the smaller one he rolled inside of it. It gives him an excuse to cover his face, at least for a moment. Off to his right he can hear Amethyst Cat murmuring something to someone else—Sapphire Pegasus or Amber Mammoth, probably. Cobalt Eagle would have said something already. “Hey,” he adds, and tries his best to sound casual. “How'd they get my birth certificate? I thought I'd never see it again.”

“I wrote to the Standesamt in Ingolstadt,” Pegasus tells him. “I do hope you'll forgive me, Johann, my boy. I got your birth name from your mother. 'Johann Anderson' wouldn't have helped at all.” 

“No, it's fine.” He nods at a door set in one side of the corridor. “Can I take a minute?”

“By all means.”

Johann slips into the toilet. It's empty, and he takes the big stall because it feels somehow less pathetic than doing the exact same thing in the small one. He swings his bag into his lap and sits down, then puts his head on his bag and his face in the crook of his elbow.

In a slightly different world, he'd be walking out the doors between Pegasus and his mother right now. Pegasus would probably have a restaurant recommendation. His mother would insist on taking his bag to carry. They'd probably have a small argument over whether she should get dinner and he should keep his painting money or whether he should be allowed to buy her food when she came from Ingolstadt just to cheer him on.

In a slightly different world she'd scold him for his muddy shoes and then say _I'm proud of you, Hanschen._

The bag and his arm help to muffle the noise, but as Ruby crawls over his shoulder he still hopes Pegasus stays outside. There's no way anyone could mistake it for anything but crying.

\--------------------

He's wearing the ridiculous shirt with the ruffles again, but this time he has new jeans on underneath. New to him, anyway; they were €7 in the secondhand shop he favors, and the hems are intact. His trainers are worn, and there wasn't much he could do about that, but they managed to survive a run through a washing machine. He even borrowed some kind of hair stuff from Nadja and did his best to tame his curls down to something resembling hair more than a bird's nest.

For someone who's been living on his own since he was just shy of fourteen, he thinks he looks pretty good.

He just hopes, as the court is called to order, that the judge agrees. 

“Fraulein Anderson, if you'll step forward, please.”

Johann bites his tongue and stands up from the first row of benches. “Yes, Your Honor, but respectfully—” according to Pegasus, judges _love_ this phrase, and Johann can only hope it's the same for family court as business court—“I think my case would be much easier to make if the court would call me by my real name instead of the one on my legal documents.”

The judge stares. Johann doesn't stare back; he just looks up with all the casual innocence of someone asking about the weather. At last the judge—a man somewhere in his sixties, Johann thinks, and hopes that won't be a point against him—speaks.

“I'm going to have to ask you to explain that request, Fraulein Anderson.”

“Oh, it's simple, really,” Johann tells him. “This hearing is to explain why I ran away and should get emancipation instead of being returned to my parents, if I read the summons document right, and the answer is that I ran away because my parents made our house too hostile to live in after I came out as female to male transgender. I've been living in Berlin for almost eighteen months as a male under the name I want to transition to, and I can give you plenty of proofs of income and housing, Your Honor, but not a single one is going to have my birth name on it.”

The judge stares at Johann so hard he thinks there must be some kind of psychometry test before he can get to the answer. At last the judge sighs.

“State your preferred name for the record, Herr Anderson.”

“Johann Heinrich.” He pauses, then spells out the _Heinrich._ He borrowed it from his grandfather. If it's going to be official, he wants it right.

“Johann Heinrich Anderson, you were found on November second of this year to be a juvenile runaway from Ingolstadt, Germany. This court ordered your removal from Berlin to Ingolstadt, at which point you placed a counterclaim for emancipation. This is a very unusual request, Herr Anderson.”

“I know, Your Honor. But I have very good reasons for making it.”

The judge raises an eyebrow. Johann pulls a manila folder out of his backpack. His copy fees for the library were outrageous, but with a little luck, they'll have been well worth it.

“I had to sort of guess at what some of the things in the Jugendamt documents meant,” Johann admits. “But I'm pretty sure what I need to show you today is that I can live on my own without a parent, and that's not hard. Erm—can I give you this?”

The judge nods him forward. Johann has to stand on his toes to see over the front of the bench, but he manages. Inside the folder are copies of notebook paper with apparently-nonsensical figures on them, and if he can't point out what's what it's going to look like irrelevant gibberish.

“I've been working for cash for over a year, Your Honor,” he says. “The left column is my pay at the end of the week. The right side is what I need to get out of it and what's in the square boxes is what I have left at the end of the week. It'd be easier if I could get a bank account, but I can still do the maths.”

“If I understand your figures, Herr Anderson, your savings total amount to under €100. That isn't much money.”

“It's low right now because I took out of it for some winter clothes. I've been accepted to the Duel Academia North Campus starting at half-term and I'm pretty sure my work clothes aren't going to be accepted for a uniform check. I was short my first couple of weeks in Berlin, but you learn to budget pretty quickly when you're on your own, I think.”

“And where are you getting these cash jobs?”

“Wherever I can. Yardwork, mostly, but I've bussed at a few bars and there are Duel Monsters tournaments with cash prizes. I haven't been getting regular work because I haven't been able to use my ID number.”

“I'm familiar with the dueling circuit, Herr Anderson, and cage matches are no place for someone your age.”

“I don't do cage matches, I'm working up into the real Pro League,” Johann protests. “I won a national Cup sponsored by the game creator a little under two months ago and I've got an invite to a Junior League tournament this month. If I go back to Ingolstadt that's going to go away and I'll have to start over a third time, and this time it might be too late.”

“A third time, Herr Anderson?”

“I got my first invitational slot when I was thirteen. My mum found out I was dueling as a boy and made it impossible for me to keep dueling. I could have been in the Junior Pros by now if I hadn't been set back to zero. I mean to enter the Pro Leagues, Your Honor, and I won't let anything stop me.”

“So you mean to say you'll refuse to go back if I don't have you put in custody today.”

“I'd be happy to go back, Your Honor,” Johann says, and pauses to steady the hitch in his voice. “I don't hate my parents. I miss them. If I thought for even a minute my mum would accept me as a son and let me attend North School I wouldn't be here today because I would've already gone straight back to Ingolstadt. But I already know she'd be putting me back in Catholic school in a dress, and I can't do that again. I ran away because I wanted to kill myself and if I died trying to get away it couldn't be any worse than it was already. I can't meet my parents' requirements and they won't meet mine, so it's best if we separate now.”

There's a long silence. The judge pages through Johann's budget. 

“Have you sought medical assistance for your alleged gender identity, Herr Anderson?”

Johann bites his tongue over the “alleged.” It's legalese. He knows it is. Yelling isn't going to help him, and so far he hasn't been forced to go through this hearing answering to “Fraulein”—there's that, at least.

“I haven't been able to because I've been trying to avoid official notice, Your Honor,” Johann points out. “If you grant me emancipation the first thing I need to do is get a physical for school because I haven't had my meningitis jab and I'm pretty sure a flu one wouldn't be a bad idea, either. If I can find a doctor willing to talk to me about transition at the same time I'd be all for it.”

“And if not, Herr Anderson?”

“North School has Internet access, it's got a grant from KaibaCorp. I can do research on a suitable doctor while I'm there and start transition over the summer.”

“Do you have your school record with you, Herr Anderson?”

Johann can't bite his lip. He'll look uncertain, and then he can kiss the Academia goodbye. Instead he crosses his toes inside his shoes.

“I wasn't able to enroll formally in Berlin, Your Honor, but I picked up some textbooks from a shop and followed a curriculum I found on the Internet. The enrollment exam for North School includes a general academic portion and I passed with a 381 out of 400. If you want me to take an exam covering the normal German curriculum through Hauptschule, I'm confident I'll pass it. I've continued studying maths and history with an interest in programming beyond the Hauptschule level, and that's the track I intend to pursue at North School.”

“And do you have these records from North School with you?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Let me see them.”

Johann retrieves the record from his backpack and hands it over. The judge flicks through it.

“Where are you living, Herr Anderson?”

“Right now I'm in a youth hostel. I can't get my own permanent address because I'd need proof of identity, but if I could use my birth certificate or ID card I could afford a small flat.”

There's another long round of silence, so stretched and taut Johann jumps when the judge suddenly scoops up his files and taps them into a neat stack on the bench. 

“Yours is an unusual case, Herr Anderson,” the judge says. “Legal emancipation isn't usually extended to runaways, and as a rule those on the streets turn themselves in within a few weeks. That you've survived a year and a half without parental supervision and completed a basic education is almost beyond the bounds of credible. I'm inclined to return you to your parents, but somehow I suspect I'd see you again in a few months, and frankly the German court system has neither the time nor resources to continue retrieving and reassessing a chronic runaway with no record of delinquency or substance abuse.” 

He holds out Johann's stack of papers. Johann reaches for it almost automatically; his hands and feet feel numb, and his stomach feels like a baked stone sitting heavily atop his bowels. Ruby appears on his shoulder and churrs in his ear, and Johann immediately puts his eyes back on the judge. No matter how far away or unreal he feels, he has to at least look present. 

“I can't in good conscience approve your request for emancipation given your financial situation, Herr Anderson,” the judge says. “What I will approve is a state guardianship. You will select a stable permanent address and a court-appointed guardian will meet with you monthly to assess your situation. During the semester you may speak with your guardian via telephone. You may request another hearing in six months to reassess whether you're able to complete the emancipation process.”

_Johann, answer him!_

Amethyst Cat butts Johann's hand almost hard enough to move it for real. Johann takes a breath. “Thank you, Your Honor.” He pauses. “Your Honor—I don't want to be a bother, but is my guardian going to be looking for _me_ , or . . . ?”

The judge raises an eyebrow again. Johann goes over his question in his head and tries again. “What I mean to say is it's probably going to take a bit to find a flat, and if someone turns up at a boys' hostel asking for someone by my birth name the owner's going to be _really_ confused and I'll probably lose my place to stay.”

“I'll have it noted in your file.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.” 

The judge gives a curt nod. Johann guesses it's judgespeak for _you're welcome._ “You're dismissed, Herr Anderson. Please leave your current address with the court clerk before you go.”

“Yes, Your Honor.” He scoops up his backpack. “Your Honor?”

“ _Yes_ , Herr Anderson?”

“Nadja doesn't know I'm a runaway. She thinks I'm a student from Munich. Please don't let her get in trouble, it's not her fault and the hostel's all she's got.”

“If we were to prosecute every business owner who unknowingly harbored a runaway, Herr Anderson, there wouldn't be a low-budget hotel left in Germany. I think you can rest easy on that point.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

Outside the courtroom, Johann leans on the wall and lets out a sigh of relief he didn't even know he was holding in.

_So, you're safe!_

“Not quite,” Johann mumbles, trying not to move his mouth as Emerald Turtle trundles along beside him. “I've got to prove I can do it to this guardian before I can actually go it on my own.”

 _An adult could be useful while you're preparing for school, Johann,_ Sapphire Pegasus points out. Johann wonders idly how exactly all three of them are not just fitting into a narrow courthouse corridor but actually ambling down it together, and then decides he'll research spirit physics when he gets to North School. They teach classes on it—he's already gotten onto the Academia Internet forum to check. _You'll have to pack, and anything you can't take with you will have to be stored._

“Yeah, I know, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.”

He leaves his address with the clerk and heads out of the courthouse. There's a Weinerwald one block over, and Johann heads for it almost at a run—he was too nervous for breakfast, and now he feels like he's starving. Then he pauses.

There's also a payphone on the corner, and he wants to tell _someone_ his news. There's only one person he knows who'd care and already has a reason to know, and payphone charges are exorbitant verging on criminal, but he drops in a few euro coins anyway. It's a gamble whether he'll even be able to get hold of anyone—surely business hours in America must not have started yet—but to his surprise, exactly the voice he wants answers on the other end of the line. Johann's pretty sure he hasn't smiled this hard since he left Ingolstadt.

“Pegasus? It's Johann. You told me to keep you posted.”

\---------------

“Johann?”

Johann reseats his bag on his shoulder and lets out an internal groan. If he weren't leaving for North School in a little under five weeks, he'd buy a bicycle. Being on a regular payroll has its advantages.

“Yeah?”

“Someone's here to see you?”

The way Nadja says it—a question, not a statement—makes Johann want to turn tail and run. Instead he does his best to look politely puzzled.

“You didn't tell me you were under conservator guardianship,” Nadja says, and under the sudden note of fear Johann is rather proud of himself for not swearing. 

“It's a new thing.”

Nadja doesn't answer. Instead she nods Johann toward the parlour.

“He's in there.”

Johann wraps his hand around the strap of his bag and squeezes it. Then he walks into the parlour.

He's not sure what he expected out of a court-appointed guardian. Maybe someone fat and short with a sour expression and a constant smell of sweat and cigarettes, or someone very tall and horsey with stern-looking glasses and a permanent frown. Definitely someone in a suit with an expensive tie pin, and probably a ruler-straight part in iron-gray hair.

Instead, there's a man in blue jeans and a sweatshirt with a zipper down the front. There's a tie underneath, but the knot is pulled out loose, and when he raises his head from the manila file in front of him—brown hair, only a little gray—Johann is shocked. His new guardian looks like he's probably even younger than Johann's parents. 

He doesn't look like he hates Johann on sight, either. That's a plus.

“ . . . Johann . . . ? Anderson?”

Johann nods, not at all happy with that pause in his name. He hopes the stumble wasn't there when this man asked after him up front. Or maybe he just asked for Anderson. There's never anybody else here long enough to be mistaken for him.

“Dietrich Schröter.” The man holds out a hand. Johann hesitates, then shakes it. “I assume your landlady told you why I'm here.”

“Not exactly.”

“You're not considered a flight risk because of your Academia enrollment, but my understanding is that you leave in just over a month. I thought it best to establish contact with you before you go.”

“Oh.” Johann sticks his hands in his pockets so he won't fidget. “Well—you found me. I was just going to drop off my bag and go to dinner, I just got off work.”

“I'll go with you. I came here after work myself.” Schröter stands up.

Johann wants to point out that he meant he planned to go to dinner alone. Then he decides it's not worth the effort. Instead he hoists his bag higher on his shoulder.

“I'll be back.”

_Are you sure he is who he says he is, Johann?_

“Do you think he's lying?” Johann asks—Cobalt Eagle in particular, his deck in general.

_I don't get that sense, no. But you should be careful anyway._

“I'll have you guys with me. I'm not afraid.”

He drops off his bag, takes his wallet and deck, and frowns at the button-down his new job demanded of him before stripping it off and replacing it with one of his usual long-sleeved pullovers. He's pretty sure his binder is good enough to not let his chest show, but it still makes him nervous.

Schröter is waiting in the front foyer with Johann's file tucked under his arm when Johann reappears, beanie jammed down over his hair and collar already turned up against the cold. The temperature isn't so bad—it's almost above freezing—but the wind is up with a vengeance.

Johann turns left when they step outside, fully intending to go to the Kochlöffel—his new job pays better than Klein did, but he's still got to save his money—and then hears a voice from the other direction.

“My car is this way.”

“I don't have the money for a proper restaurant.”

“That's fine.”

“Look,” Johann says at last, and stops walking. He touches his deck case. “This might be awfully blunt, but I'm not really keen on getting in a car with someone I've just met.”

Johann expects a response about how Schröter doesn't care what he's keen on, or how he's the minor so he'll do what he's told. Instead Schröter makes a noncommittal kind of “mm” sound.

“There's a place three blocks over. We could walk, but the car is warmer. It's up to you.”

Johann waits. Schröter doesn't offer any hint one way or the other on what to expect. Johann weighs his options: there are traffic lights, and the entire district is business. If Schröter tries to take him somewhere other than a restaurant, escaping a car should be easy. He has his deck, there's money in his wallet, and if all other options are lost he has a pair of heavy winter boots on his feet and plenty of experience with a football. Finally he nods—but grudgingly. 

“But I'm not going anywhere else.”

“That's fine.”

The car isn't small—no smaller than most of the ones Johann sees on the streets every day, at least—but after over a year of walking and taking the train it feels unbearably cramped. Johann almost forgets his seat belt, and when he remembers it he feels like he's about to be cut in two. Three blocks is only a two-minute drive, but it feels like it might as well be two hours. 

They haven't been seated even long enough to get menus before Johann knows he's going to be stuck with soup and water. There's no way he can afford more and stick to his budget for the week, not in a place that has real tablecloths.

“Order what you like. It's on expense.”

“Can I get dessert?”

A smile flickers over Schröter's mouth, there and gone so fast Johann almost thinks he imagined it. “You can get dessert.”

Schröter orders a coffee. Johann considers getting a beer, then decides against it; his new, real ID card still has that other name on it, and a beer with dinner isn't worth a five-minute explanation about how yes, it's a real ID, and really his. Instead he gets a Coke, and after their drinks are delivered and food ordered—Johann saw “schweinenbraten” and didn't need a second more, and Schröter apparently has a usual—Schröter pulls out Johann's file again.

“Did Nikolaus explain the guardianship process to you?”

“ . . . Nikolaus?”

“Judge Baumgartener.”

“Oh.” Johann shifts in his seat and wishes he had something to toy with. Shuffling his deck would do, but he doesn't want to pull it out here. “Yeah. No. I mean, kind of? He told me you'll meet with me once a month to see how I'm doing until I can reapply for emancipation.”

“That's all true, so far as it goes. Guardianship wasn't originally for Germans at all. It was instituted in 1985 due to a massive influx of Russian refugees into West Berlin and Munich. Most of them were under the age of 18, but after living under Soviet rule they were completely maladjusted to normal foster care. There was nowhere to send them back to, so guardianship was proposed as a solution to assimilate them into normal German life.”

“Why was there nowhere to send them back to? I thought Soviet deportations happened all the time.”

Schröter shrugs. “I'm not a usual part of the system,” he says. “Nikolaus is a personal friend of mine. He was concerned a more bureaucratic approach would lead to you dropping out of the system and facing some very serious problems, so I agreed to take you on if the Jugendamt would accept. Someone more familiar with the system might be able to tell you. All I know is that Nikolaus raised quite a few eyebrows when he put you under guardianship instead of in foster care. It was essentially a statement of his faith in you that you're not dysfunctional or delinquent and only need a hand up on your way to independence, even though you're a runaway.”

Johann nods. Schröter takes a sip of his coffee. 

“So, to that end, you and I will be less foster parent and foster child, and more of . . . partners, I suppose you could say. My job is to mentor you and ensure you're taking appropriate steps to secure your future. Which will mean you do have to talk to me about yourself eventually, Johann.”

“I guess I'm a bit out of the habit.”

Schröter chuckles. “You say that as though there was a time you were in the habit. Somehow I doubt there was.”

“You're probably right.” Johann watches the bubbles in his Coke slowly rise to the surface. “What do you do for your real job, if you're not a professional guardian?”

“I teach history. Your file says you're pursuing it as a track alongside . . . computer programming?”

Johann tries to nod with his straw still in his mouth. It very nearly goes up his nose, and he gives up. “I know it sounds weird when you put it together that way, but I really want to work with Duel Monsters when I graduate. Even if I don't make it in the Pro Leagues. There's a lot you can do in the field if you know a lot about history, because of how the game is structured. Rumor has it there are entire teams working for Industrial Illusions who don't do anything but go to really, really old libraries and poke around the restricted sections to see if they can find stuff worth putting in the game that isn't in regular history books.”

“Does it interest you?”

“What?”

“History. Does it interest you, or are you studying it only for a career?”

“Depends on the history, I guess. I'm reading the _Germania_ right now.”

“That's some heavy reading.”

Johann shrugs. “It's interesting.” He looks down at his cup. “Do you duel?”

Schröter laughs nervously, and Johann raises his eyes. “I'm not sure it matters much if—”

“Parents say things don't matter. Partners talk.”

There's a long pause, and Johann feels some of his hopes for an easy transition to emancipation fade. Then Schröter speaks again.

“I suppose you're right. I tried to learn something about it because so many of my students are interested, but I didn't get very far. It seems very complicated.”

“I guess it can be. But mostly it's about learning what your own cards are so you know how you can counter whatever your opponent throws at you.”

“When you put it that way, it doesn't sound so different from chess.”

“I don't know how to play chess.”

Schröter tips his coffee in Johann's direction. “Perhaps the next time we meet I could teach you.”

“I'll let you teach me how to play chess if you'll let me teach you how to play Duel Monsters.”

“It's a deal.”

The meal is mostly a silent one. Schröter tries a couple of times to start a conversation about Johann's job, but Johann's pretty sure he was most right about the thing he said first: Johann is terrible at talking about himself. At last Schröter simply writes his phone number on the back of a business card and gives it to Johann to “stay in touch.” Johann doesn't get a dessert. He doesn't remember the last time he's felt so full, and he thinks if he tries—no matter how good the apple cake looks—he might end up being sick. 

Schröter is good to his word, and drops Johann off at the door to the hostel. “Call me when you get your schedule for next week,” he says, and Johann nods before pushing open the door and heading inside. Nadja is sitting in the foyer with a small stack of paperwork, and Johann frowns in confusion. He's never seen her past six o'clock before. 

“Johann?” she says, and then Johann recognizes the top paper in her stack and feels his stomach drop. “I need to talk to you.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Germany is almost behind him. The future lies ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slow down, you crazy child  
> You're so ambitious for a juvenile  
> But then if you're so smart, then tell me  
> Why are you still so afraid?
> 
> \--"Vienna," Billy Joel

“You've been difficult to get hold of.”

“Yes, well, that's what happens when someone gives unredacted paperwork to my landlady, and she finds out I'm transgender, and decides it's too much of a risk to let me stay in case somebody else in the building finds out and beats me or rapes me or something.” Johann stirs his hot chocolate and watches the whipped cream melt. He does it gently. If he stirred it with all the anger he's trying not to let Schröter see, he might crack the cup. “It's funny how that works.”

“I didn't even think of it until it was too late. I'm sorry.”

“It's a little late to be sorry.” He takes a sip. Yelling still won't help him. Schröter sighs.

“Where are you staying now?”

“None of your business.”

“All of my business, actually.”

“Why, so you can get me kicked out again?” 

“Because if you won't tell me I have to start looking into whether you've fallen into prostitution or drug abuse, and you'll be saving us both a great deal of time and inconvenience.”

Johann puts his spoon down on the table. He does it less gently than he stirred the cream into his chocolate, but still doesn't slam it. “The owner at the bookshop said I could sleep on the sofa in the coffee area until I find a place.”

“And how is that going?”

“I went to seven places yesterday. Four quoted me different prices in person than they did on the phone, two told me they weren't sure I'd be a good fit with the kind of community they already had there and one refused to use my real name and told me the law doesn't dictate to her conscience.”

“I could speak to your hostel owner. Turning you away on the basis of your gender identity is illegal.”

“I don't want to stay somewhere I'm not welcome.”

“When are you supposed to leave for school?”

“The second. Frau Wagner said she'd keep me on until New Year.”

“Three weeks,” Schröter muses. “That's a long time to stay on a couch.”

“I've slept in worse places.” Johann doesn't bother saying he can use the money for school. Nadja didn't keep him from coming back to pick up his mail, and his supply list is extensive.

“How do you plan to keep a flat when you're at school with no income?”

“There are students in Berlin. I can let it to someone else. It's not like I'll have anything valuable there.”

“And during your spring holiday?”

“I'll probably stay at school and catch up. I'm not responsible for every bit of homework that was assigned first semester, but I have to cover all the material.” Johann takes the biggest sip of his chocolate he can manage while it's still hot. He tries not to buy premium drinks because of the cost, but Schröter told him the same thing today as last week—their meals are on a government tab—and Johann intends to enjoy his drink. Maybe he'll even get a second one. Schröter taps his pen on his notebook.

“I have a spare room you can stay in while you look. You likely won't even be able to sign a lease until the new year and by then you'll just be draining what money you've got on a flat you're not using. Spend some time on your weekends after homework calling places and getting pictures and find a place you're comfortable rather than a place you dashed into because you had to.”

“I'm fine.”

“You're homeless.”

“I said I'm _fine_.” He sets the cup down. He doesn't do it gently.

“Learning to compromise is a vital adult skill, Johann,” Schröter tells him. “You may feel perfectly safe and able to use the bookshop as a viable housing option. A judge won't necessarily see it that way. You're only harming your own prospects for emancipation.”

“I don't go back to the judge until summer holiday.”

“And when you do, what do you plan to tell him? 'No, Your Honor, I slept on a bookshop couch for a month but now term's out I'll find a flat'? Please don't insult your own intelligence, or mine, by saying you think any responsible family judge would find that safe and acceptable.”

“I don't fancy having you watching me all the time.”

“If I'd planned to watch you all the time, I would have started by demanding you turn your finances over to me.”

Johann looks down at the biscuits on his plate and considers dunking one in his chocolate out of spite. The cup is still mostly full; he'd probably end up splashing. Then he decides against it. Being childish isn't a luxury he can afford. Schröter folds his hands.

“I don't think I've told you,” he says, and shifts in his chair in the way that means they could be here for awhile. “I lived at home when I was in university. In fact I wasn't able to find a place of my own until I was almost 25. There were so many Russians and Poles suddenly living in Berlin there simply weren't any places to let. Not at prices I could afford, at least. Trying to do it ten years previously at half-wages to what I earned would have been impossible for me. Even if I'd managed to scrape together a flat and enough money for the cost of living alone, I would have been terrified all of the time—of intruders, of going hungry, a thousand other things.” He stares intently until Johann meets his eyes. “What you are doing is nothing short of incredible. Needing help on the way to independence is nothing you should be ashamed of. On the contrary, plenty of people need it twice as long.”

Johann looks away again. The idea of living under another adult's roof isn't quite what he'd call revolting, but nothing about it thrills him. “That's not going to look good to a judge either.”

“I think I can make it work for you instead of against you.”

Johann manages to stifle a sigh into his chocolate. The judge is going to end up thinking he's a child. He'll get sent back to Ingolstadt, or maybe to a foster family. Neither option appeals.

“Only until summer term.”

“That's fine.” Schröter sips his coffee. “Do you already have your supplies for school?”

“Just the stuff I already owned. My Duel Disk and my bag and things like that.”

“I can take you this weekend to pick up the rest if you'd like. The trains are horrible this time of year.”

“The trains are horrible all times of year, they just use the crowding as an excuse,” Johann says, and to his surprise Schröter laughs so loudly he has to muffle himself with his arm. 

“Isn't _that_ truth,” he says, and a stray chuckle makes its way out as a wheeze. “When I was at university I was aboard one that broke down and lost power right in the middle of a tunnel. I've hated them ever since.”

Johann can't help a grin. It's not too hard to imagine Schröter in a sweatshirt and jeans, struggling to get an overfull backpack through a pried-open train door and out along a flickery and probably damp maintenance pavement. “That's why I try not to take them.” He dips a biscuit carefully in his chocolate and nibbles it. Madeleines are made to be dipped. That can't be held against him.

“You can take me if you want.”

\----------------------------

_There's no way._

Johann gnaws the end of a pen and stares at the letter spread out on Schröter's kitchen table. Pushed to the middle of the table is the part that starts with _Dear Herr Anderson, congratulations on your acceptance to the North School Campus_ ; to Johann's left is his new class schedule. 

Directly in front of him, separated by teacher and general use, is his supply list, and he has no idea how he's going to afford it all.

No wonder there are so many scholarships offered, he thinks. There might be three whole people in the world who could afford all this and tuition too.

“That's quite a look on you,” a voice says from the door. Johann jumps and twists in his seat. Schröter's jeans still have snow on the cuffs, and his face is bright red from cold. “Why so serious?”

“Just a bit of paperwork.”

“This school of yours must really be quite something,” Schröter comments. “I send my students a supply list at the beginning of term and that's the end of it.”

“Well, yours probably hasn't got as much on it as mine.”

Schröter pulls a beer out of the refrigerator and pops it on the bottle opener magnet. Then he pauses and gestures at Johann with it.

“Would you like one?”

“I've got a coffee, but thank you.”

Schröter drops into a chair with a sigh and pulls open his bag. There's a manila file in there Johann's well familiar with by now. It never seems to be far out of sight, and he's wondered a couple of times if it's not some kind of control tactic. _Do as I tell you,_ that folder seems to say, _or you'll regret it._

“I turned in my first report today,” he says. “Nikolaus said I should congratulate you for him on the new job.”

“I didn't know your reports went directly to Herr Baumgartener.” Johann frowns at the supply list and wonders why he needs two uniform jackets when his letter indicates the jackets don't have to be worn in off-hours and can be shed during class at a professor's discretion. Surely he can wash one every other day and save himself forty euros.

“They don't. I stopped in to say hello. Of course I can't give him detailed updates because it would be considered undue influence, but I thought he'd like to know you're not killing grubs for that fellow with the stubble anymore.” He pulls out a sheet of paper and pushes it in Johann's direction. “You can read it, if you like. It would give you an idea what I need to know when term's in.”

“In a bit, if that's okay.” He frowns again. “Ugh, they have _Formal Days_ uniforms?”

Schröter laughs. Then the laugh winds down, so quickly Johann wonders if he's accidentally done something horribly rude.

“You look that concerned over your _supplies?_ ”

Johann hesitates. Ruby chitters from his lap, and although the other Gem Beasts don't make an appearance he can feel them watching. Finally he pushes the list, and his sheet of prices, across the table.

“I did out the maths. Even if I use the Duel Disk I've got now and buy my textbooks secondhand the uniform alone is over 150 euros. It says I ought to put about two hundred euros aside for term expenses and then there's texts and notes and—” Johann rubs his right eye. A headache's been forming there for over an hour. “I don't know how I'm going to afford it. I'm making more than I was before, but I'm paying tax now, too. And just because I'm not staying at the hostel doesn't mean all my expenses magically went away. I've still got to pay part of my doctor's visit next week and there's no way my shoes are going to last to the end of term, the sole on the left one broke yesterday.”

Schröter looks down at the list, glances up at Johann, then back to the list. “I think you should have that beer and take a walk.”

“Look, I've got to figure this out, and it's not going well, all right—”

“Right now you're spinning in circles. You've been looking at it for too long. All you're going to do right now is make it worse.” Schröter glances back up at him. “You finished your Hauptschule on your own. How did you study your material? In marathons or little bites?”

“Mostly I'd get in from work and study for an hour or so and then go to dinner and look it back over what I'd set myself that day when I got back into the hostel.” Johann looks up from his coffee. “Maybe if I give it a rest I'll come up with something when I look later?”

Schröter nods at him. “And I can look it over while you're out and see if I notice anything that could pare it down for you.” He picks up Johann's pen, then pauses. “Have you ever done long-term budgeting before?”

“I don't know what that is.”

Schröter's smile stops just short of a grin. “Go take that walk. When you get back I'm going to teach you something I think you're going to like quite a lot.”

\----------------------

_Is this everything?_

“I think so,” Johann says, and shuffles a bag over his shoulder. “Herr Schröter said I should be able to take secondhand jeans and I should wait to get my second jacket until I'm through the trial duels. It'd be a waste to take two and then end up in Brown or Navy.” Johann squirms in spite of himself. Duel Academia has a rigorous entrance exam in three parts, and the dorm the proctors assign is permanent unless promotion or demotion occurs; North School has trial duels, and Johann will have ten days to duel at least three-quarters of the students before his scores are compared to theirs and his final dorm assigned. His performance at the Laurel Cup won't mean anything once he walks through the North School doors, and twice this week he's had nightmares about getting a scoresheet with the words “does not meet minimum score” written across it. 

_Have more faith in yourself,_ Emerald Turtle says, as Johann wrestles his way through a flock of hapless fathers doing last-minute shopping. _You haven't just won a single Cup, Johann. You've been top of the class for years._

 _And there's the tournament last weekend, too,_ Sapphire Pegasus reminds him, and Johann hides a grin. The prize was only fifty euros, but there _was_ a prize, and it bought his new trainers and part of his uniform today.

_Rubi?_

“I don't really have anything to leave,” Johann says, and then there's a short _beep-beep_ from the small white car parked by the curb and he jogs up to put his bags inside.

“Did you find what you needed?” Schröter asks, as Johann slides into the front seat. After the frigid air outside the mall, the car feels incredible.

“Everything on the second list,” Johann tells him, and pulls it out. There's a line through each item Schröter suggested Johann write down, and after a few moments of indecision Johann tucks the list into one of his shopping bags. “Thanks.”

“With pleasure.” Schröter pulls out of the mall, then slams on the brakes so hard the tires screech and throws an arm in front of Johann's chest. “My god, these tourists! Are you okay?”

Johann nods. He doesn't try to answer with words. Instead he bites his lip and tries very hard not to think about his mother doing the exact same thing, her entire petite frame shaking as she screeched at the car in front of her for endangering her daughter. Schröter looks at him with no small amount of concern.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Johann says at last. “Just a bit hungry.”

“I've got some sausages at home. Or did you want to stop somewhere?”

Johann stares out the window and makes a face. “Let's stop somewhere,” he says. “I haven't had to wait in line for three hours yet today and I don't quite feel complete without it, do you know what I mean?”

Schröter laughs, and it occurs to Johann he should probably be glad he has a guardian who understands his sense of humor. “Yes,” he says. “Perhaps we should try a sit-down restaurant. Why should we settle for three hours when we could make it four?” 

Johann can't help grinning. “Maybe we should just have the sausages before we starve,” he answers, and watches Schröter flick on his turn signal. The grin fades. “Why are you so kind to me?”

Schröter doesn't look at him—his concentration is entirely on the 113—but a frown touches the corners of his mouth. “What do you mean?”

“You help me go shopping. You take me places. You call me my name. Nobody's paying you for it.”

“Nobody pays me to be unkind to you, either.”

Johann doesn't answer, but when Schröter pulls into the parking spot just outside his flat he also doesn't jump out of the car like it's going to bite him. Schröter sets the brake.

“I realize you may have a very unsavory impression of authority because of how it has been used against you,” Schröter says. “But please believe me when I say there are a great many people out there who believe every child should be allowed to live up to their potential, and that those people understand not every child is the same. That belief is the reason I teach, and the reason Nikolaus asked me to take your case.” 

His car door clunks open, and a puff of cold air blows into the car. Johann reaches for one of his bags, only for it to slip through his fingers.

“I'll take this,” Schröter tells him. “You get the one in the back.”

Johann does.

\-----------------------------------

_This is it._

_Are you ready, Johann?_

“No,” Johann says, and it's true. His heart is beating so fast he feels vaguely sick, and if he were indoors instead of standing outside on a plain concrete platform with cold wind whipping his curls around his face he thinks he'd be more than just “vaguely” sick. 

_You can do it!_ Sapphire Pegasus tells him. _Trust in yourself._

 _We'll be with you,_ Amethyst says. _Don't be afraid._

“This is just— _really happening,_ ” Johann tells them, and then pinches himself under his sleeve again. He's probably going to have a bruise by the time he gets to school. He doesn't care.

There's a droning scream across the sky, and Johann watches as a plane first lands, then trundles across the airfield in his direction. When he left Berlin by train Schröter was on the platform with him, and at the normal beginning of term this platform will be full of boys, but right now it's just Johann and a few supply boxes. 

It takes almost twenty minutes for the plane to stop completely enough for Johann to take the wooden stairs from the platform to the tarmac, and from the tarmac to the plane. The inside looks like something out of a Hollywood movie about high-powered supervillains—about two dozen seats, but all of them able to swivel and turn around tables and windows instead of straight in aisles. Johann wonders just how many planes there must be; the North School plane runs twice daily, surely not enough to bring the entire school's population in a day.

He's not even aware he's being spoken to until Ruby trills sharply in his ear, and then he turns around with a start. There's a loud clunk below him—the cargo doors closing.

“Mister Anderson,” the pilot says. It's not a question. Johann wonders if his name was included in some kind of manifest. “We'll be leaving shortly. Please, take a seat.”

Johann nods. Mister. Of course; North School's primary language is English. They'll probably expect him to say _hi_ instead of _guten morgen_ , too.

The pilot nods back and heads for the cockpit. Johann picks a seat near the door, away from the wing. He's never seen the sea before. It must be something, he thinks, to view it for the first time from above.

_Now are you ready?_

“No,” Johann says, and under the noise from the propellers he laughs. It's like being on top of the first big hill of the roller coaster in Bayern-Park, knowing it's too late to get off and torn between _oh no_ and _whee_. 

_I'd suggest you ready yourself quickly, then,_ Amber Mammoth rumbles, almost as loudly as the plane itself. The takeoff point is only a few hundred meters away from the water, and Johann can see sparkling blue-gray coming closer.

 _I'm not ready,_ he thinks. And then:

_I can't wait._


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's strange, being normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Duel Academy at North School! If you should want them, facecasts are available for many of Johann's teachers and classmates. (There's also a diagram of Johann's dorm, because I take my worldbuilding very seriously.) 
> 
> A brief portion of this chapter is in French. Its exact content isn't particularly important, other than the fact that it's a friendly exchange and establishes that Johann speaks a third language.

“This will be your room,” says the professor who met Johann at the gates. Or maybe he's an administrator. Johann doesn't remember his name, much less his title; from the moment he heard the man's clipped London accent he's just thought of him as _Top Hat_. “Your roommate is already back from holiday. The rest of your dormmates will be here in the next two to three days. The Black Two Prefect is away and any problems you have in his absence should be reported to Dr. Pedersen. Is there anything you need?”

Johann looks at the right side of the room—the one with no pictures or stray pieces of clothing. The bed is built over the desk, already made; the closet stands empty. His things won't be too excessive for the space—if anything, he thinks, they won't fill it up. “Where's the toilet?”

“You'll share with the room next door. The connecting doors can be locked from the inside. Be sure not to lock them out when you're away.”

Johann nods. “Thanks.”

The professor claps a hand on his shoulder. “Welcome to North School,” he says, and then Johann is alone in the room, trying to remember which of his three bags has his binders in it so he can stash them first. He drops them below the bed, and then there's a bang behind him.

The boy behind him is rail-thin, with a shock of bright red hair over horn-rimmed glasses and a face more freckle than skin—the part Johann can see above his muffler, anyway, and when he pulls it off the rest of his face matches. The boy pulls off the glasses, still steamed up from his run inside, and Johann catches a glimpse of bright hazel eyes before the boy turns away, mumbling expletives about glass and temperature change, still apparently not even aware Johann is there. _Oh my god,_ Johann thinks, and has to stifle a laugh. _They put me with Ron Weasley._

The boy turns around again, sees Johann, swears, puts his glasses back on, and swears again. “You're Anderson.”

Johann blinks in surprise. “Have we met?”

“No, they were talking about you in the office the day I got back from vacation and how they were gonna put you in with me because my ex-roommate's a douchebag,” the boy says. He pulls off his gloves and holds out a hand. “Jake Hawkins.”

Johann listens to the accent on the A's in the name and decides his new roommate is from Brooklyn. He thinks it's Brooklyn. It sounds like the accent every rude New Yorker in every American movie Johann's ever seen has had, anyway. Then he holds out his own hand. “Johann Anderson. I guess you already know, huh?” He laughs and hopes his nerves don't show through his laughter. Jake gives him a weird look, then shrugs it off. 

“So here's how this works,” Jake says. “I'm not telling anybody about you, 'cause I'm not an asshole. I don't have a problem with you. As long as you don't have a problem with my moms, we're good. But if you do then I go to the Dragon and tell him _you're_ an asshole, he probably moves you in with Delacourt, and then you're _really_ going to have a problem, so if you have any smartass comments I'd keep your mouth shut.”

Johann goes back over the long and rambling sentence twice before deciding no, none of it was in parts of English he doesn't understand; the words individually are perfectly intelligible, it's the words put together that don't make sense. “Why would I have a problem with your mum?” Then something else sinks in. “And what do you mean you're not telling anybody about me? I start term on the fifth with everyone else, they'll all know I'm here.”

“I mean, you know. The reason you're starting at midterm. I don't know what the fuck it's called in your language. What _is_ your language, anyway?” Jake flops down in the beanbag under his bed, and Johann goes cold. His new roommate must be able to tell, because he sits forward in the bag. “Hey, I don't care. Mom Penny works for this, like, community outreach center thing in the city. I know all kinds of people.”

Johann manages to pull in some air and decides to change the subject. “You call your mum her first name?”

“If I don't they both keep answering me every time I yell 'Mom' and it gets _really_ annoying because like, you say 'Mom' and they both yell and if you say 'no, other Mom' neither of them knows which one you mean,” Jake says, and hauls himself back to his feet. “You need any help? Because dinner's in like forty minutes.”

“Wait.” Johann finally dumps his backpack on the desk. “You've got two mums?”

Jake's face closes off. “What the fuck did you think I meant?”

Johann shrugs. “English is my third language?”

Jake rolls his eyes. “Oh, for fuck's sake.” Then he fixes Johann with a stare. “ _Do_ we have a problem?”

Johann bites his lip. “I don't think so?” Part of him wants to storm down to the office and ask why they were talking about him and his problems in the open air; part of him is afraid to, and it seems safer to worry about putting his things away and possibly talking to Dr. Pedersen later. “ _Please_ don't tell anyone, I don't want to—”

Jake waves a hand at him. “Dude. Not an asshole. We already covered this. As long as you can duel, I really don't give a shit. And if you duel well enough for them to take you at midterm, you must be _really_ fucking good.” He reaches for the rolled-up tube strung through the mesh on Johann's backpack and unrolls it. “Who's this?”

“Marko Rehmer. I was going to hang it up. Unless we're not allowed posters.”

“Nah, I've got some tape. So who's Marko Rehmer?”

“Footballer for Germany.” Johann opens the backpack, grabs a handful of binders and crams them into the bureau. “Who's your club?”

“My what?”

“Uh . . . ” Johann pauses and considers. He's seen American tourists before, and he's watched American cartoons, but the only American he's ever really talked to was Pegasus. “Your . . . team?”

“Oh. The Raiders,” Jake says. “Should be the Jets because I'm from New Jersey, but _fuck_ the Jets.” He looks over the poster. “Wait, is this _soccer?_ ”

“It's football,” Johann protests. “Wait, don't you call something different football?”

“Oh my god. Fucking Europeans.” He holds the poster up in both hands and looks around. “I don't have anything on the back of the door, you wanna put him there?”

“That works,” Johann says. He looks up at the loft bed over the desk and tosses his own blanket on it. Then he grins. 

This might just be okay.

\---------------------------

“Dragon's back!”

“Yo! The Dragon wants everybody in the common room!”

“Hey! Hawkins!” Someone bangs a single fist on the door. “Dragon called a meeting!”

Jake lifts his head from his pillow and opens a single bleary eye. “The fuck?”

“Who's the Dragon?” Johann looks up from last semester's Duel History reading and resists the urge to bite his lip as Jake rummages around for his glasses. He hung a little container for them off his bed railing, but still manages to lose them every time he wakes up. At last he gets them turned the right way around and puts them on before stumbling down the ladder. “Jake?”

“Jesus, can you _please_ find something else to call me? The only person who calls me Yakov is my granddad and like I know you've got an accent and you can't help it and all but Yake is _really_ starting to get on my fucking nerves.”

Johann stares. “I can't just call you something that isn't your name!”

“Yes, you can. I'm officially giving you permission. Fuck. Who was at the door?” He pulls his glasses off long enough to scrub an arm over his eyes and pull out a pair of jeans. 

“Someone saying the Dragon called a meeting? But who's the—”

“ _Fuck!_ ” Jake's eyes open wide behind his glasses, and he almost falls trying to get into his jeans. “Get dressed, we gotta go. Dragon's the prefect, if you're not there on time he will chew your _ass_. Demerit on the first day of term, that'd be just what you want.”

“I've been dressed for two hours,” Johann says, as Jake goes digging through his bureau and finally scrabbles a tee-shirt over his head. The words _Garden Valley Youtheatre 2003_ are on the back. “You do know it's after ten o'clock, right?”

This time Jake bypasses _fuck_ and goes directly to _Jesus Christ_. Johann doesn't bother making a witty comment as Jake hops on one foot trying to pull on his socks; instead he heads for the door.

The common room is quite possibly one of the most wonderful places Johann's ever been. It's haphazardly furnished with a mix of Academia furniture and chairs left behind by past students; the wooden table in front of the main sofa is covered in markered-on initials and witty one-liners, occasionally punctuated by coffee-cup rings. There's a boy with an awkwardly-short haircut tucked deep into the corner of the sofa, notebook open on one knee, text on the other; the cushion next to him is the only empty one left, and Johann takes it. Then he recognizes the text—it's the one he's struggling through for class—and takes a quick glance at the page of the notebook.

“Est-ce que t'as le cours pour le dernier projet?” he asks, and then very nearly flops back into his other seatmate in surprise when the boy looks up.

_Why do your eyes look so familiar?_

“Celui pendant les vacances?” 

“Ouais.” They're not _actually_ black, Johann decides; they're the same dark brown as the rich mahogany of his grandmother's dining room table. One of them has an actual spot in it, a fleck of color that's almost gold. He's sure he's never seen it before; he's also sure he's seen it a thousand times. The boy's mouth falls open in surprise. Johann wonders if it's the language—his French is pretty good, but he's never been able to wrap his accent around the syllables the right way.

“Oui,” he says, and turns down the corner of his notebook page before paging backward through it. His notes are in a binder, Johann realizes, as the boy opens the rings and pulls out three pages. He holds them out, and Johann stares at his eyes again. He's probably being rude, but that _spot_ —

“Heeeeeeeeeeeey!!” someone yells in a thick burrish accent, and a heavy body drops across the boy and Johann both. Johann hears a crinkling sound—probably the notes tearing under the sudden strain. “Ye dornt hae tae push!”

The boy's startled face twists downward into a scowl, and he shoves the body away and directly into Johann's lap. Johann jumps, and the body hits the floor. Johann can't help it—he starts laughing, and then catches sight of the boy out of the corner of his eye—still scowling, and shoving his damaged notes back into his binder before slamming it shut and jerking it to his chest, arms crossed protectively around it. The body on the floor starts laughing and then drops into Johann's lap properly just as the door slams.

 

“MacPherson, stop,” says a voice that makes Johann think of strong coffee. “You are the ass always.”

The room goes silent. Everyone turns toward the boy standing at the door—short but _wide_ , somehow, with black hair and bronze skin and hands like stone slabs.

This must be the Dragon, Johann realizes, and he tries to sit up straighter under the weight of the stocky redhead in his lap. The Dragon has a clipboard, and a stern face, and the power to demerit him straight out of school. The clipboard lands on top of the television with a small thump.

“So,” he says. “New term. There are two new people. For them and because some of you have not the memory of stumps—” there's a smattering of nervous laughter, and Johann smiles tentatively at the boy on his left before being roundly ignored—“my name is Constantin Drăgoi. I am the prefect of Black One.” He waves a hand at a boy on the floor who has bright blue hair and a Manchester United shirt. “Ryan Stevens. Second year, he has got the promotion from Navy House.”

There's an appreciative round of whistles and foot-stomping. The redhead in Johann's lap almost pitches onto the floor again, and Johann grabs him around the waist before he can lunge at the other new boy in the room. Then he realizes North School is a thousand miles and degrees of difference from Sacred Heart, and his days of murmuring approval in a full skirt are over. Drăgoi scans the room, eyes squinted almost shut. Then he stops on MacPherson and gives him a piercing stare.

“You _are_ the ass always,” he says, and then waves in their direction. “Johann Anderson. First year, he has got accepted at midterm.”

The response is immediate, and loud. A few people whistle. Several more go _ooooooooh_ , voices pitched so Johann first thinks they're booing at him. Then there's a smattering of comments: _two Andersons?_ and laughter and _well,_ fuck, _Anderson, did you bring your brother?_ and a minor disturbance on the other couch. The corner of Drăgoi's mouth twitches, and he waves at the other couch. “I think that the Andersons are not related,” he says, and someone raises a hand in greeting on the other couch. Johann raises one back, biting his tongue so he won't look like he's staring even though he is. The other Anderson has massive shoulders, and close-cropped hair, and skin so dark he looks like someone cut a human shape out of the night sky and dressed it in jeans and a polo. 

And then someone yells “hey, I know him!” in a familiar accent across the room, and Johann forgets how to breathe. _No. Not on the first day. Please, please._ A boy sitting on the floor next to the other sofa waves his hand excitedly, and he doesn't _look_ familiar, but that doesn't mean—

“I saw you on TV! You're the Johann Anderson who won the Laurel Cup! What the fuck are you doing here? You're a fucking national champion!”

The air goes back into Johann's lungs in a rush as chatter breaks out all around him. The boy to his left keeps his head pointedly bent over his text. On his right, a blonde boy with a scar on his lip stares.

“He's right,” the blonde boy says. “You have the Gem Beast deck!”

\-------------------------------------

“I thought I was going to die,” Johann says, and ducks his head down lower over the plate of beef stew in front of him. “Stop laughing, Hawkins, it isn't funny.”

“ _Ouch,_ ” Jake says. “Hawkins. So formal. I'm in trouble.” Then he elbows Johann in the side—but gently. “Dragon wouldn't let you get hurt. Shame you ended up next to Delacourt, though. Asshole. What'd he do, try to hit you with his fucking binder?”

Johann's head jerks up. His mouth is full of beef stew, and finally he gestures with his spoon in the direction of the dark-haired boy sitting by himself one table over. There's another book next to his plate, but no binder this time—all his notes are handwritten in the margins. Jake glances in the direction of the spoon.

“Yeah, that's him,” Jake agrees. “Don't let him give you shit.”

“I was going to borrow his notes,” Johann finally manages. “For a programming project.”

“Talk to Escobar, he's in Programming,” Jake suggests. “He'll get you covered.”

“Are his notes in Spanish?”

“No clue,” Jake admits. “I always borrow off Jess. You know, other Anderson.”

“The black one?”

Jake chokes on his bread. “What the fuck?”

“Well, he _is_ ,” Johann answers. “What would you call him?”

“Not 'the black one', Jesus,” Jake says. Then a wry smile touches the corners of his mouth. “I usually call him 'the other guy taking the Human Studies track'. Hey, can you pass me the green beans? They still haven't gotten _shit_ here for vegetarians.”

“You don't eat meat?”

“Not at school, it's easier,” Jake says, and spoons a giant pile of beans onto his plate. “Talk to Escobar,” Jake says again. His mouth is full of beans, and he mumbles behind his hand. “He'll get you.”

“If his notes are in English.”

“Hey, Hawkins! You got a death wish?”

There's laughter from an adjoining table. Johann looks across at a group in black jackets. They must be in Black Two; he doesn't recognize them. Jake puts his head down and shovels beans into his mouth, and Johann tries not to stare.

“Who is that?” 

“Doesn't matter,” Jake mutters. He clears the giant pile of beans so quickly Johann is afraid he'll choke. Then he swings his bag onto his shoulder and strides out of the dining hall, head still down.

Johann pulls out his binder and starts looking at his half-completed notes. Then he hears snickering from the other table, and looks up.

“Do you have a problem?”

“It's just funny, that's all,” one of the boys there says. Johann's pretty sure they're from Black One. “You rooming with him and everything.”

“Why?”

“Because,” says one of the other boys, and the whole table breaks into mean laughter. Johann stands up and pulls out his duel disk, and the laughter stops.

“We'll see if it's funny,” he says. Most of the boys glance uneasily at each other. One, very tall and with a giant ring through his nose, stands up. 

“Fine,” he answers. “Duel strip's outside the door.”

“Fine.”

“Hope you didn't get unpacked,” says one of the boys, who has very sharp eyebrows. “Dvorak's ranked nineteenth in the school. Enjoy Navy Dorm.”

“I hope Dvorak isn't unpacked,” Johann answers. “He should enjoy dropping below quota.”

He plants himself on one end of the duel strip in the hallway. Dvorak takes the other side.

 _Don't forget, Johann, this will start your trial duels,_ Amethyst Cat murmurs.

“I know,” Johann murmurs back. Dvorak switches on his disk.

“Duel!”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day of classes isn't everything Johann expected it to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My name is Woody! Howdy, howdy, howdy.
> 
> No, actually, just so y'all know the duel in this chapter was vetted for me by an actual player of the game and, if the deck used in it existed, it would be 100% legal and possible. In finest GX tradition, however, Delacourt's deck joins a whole slew of made-up-for-the-show decks that do not exist outside the anime. If you're into the metagame, some stats on it are available at the end of the chapter.

“You didn't have to do that.”

“Well, if I hadn't he would've punched me in the mouth, so—”

“I didn't mean breaking his wrist. I meant dueling him at all.” Jake stares down at his notebook and taps his pen against it. Johann copies out of one notebook and into another. _Le DM sera noté sur ces trois points._ He only has thirty minutes; he has no idea how long it takes Delacourt to eat dinner, but he doesn't want to risk any longer and being accused of theft. 

 

At last he gives up and starts scribbling in French. There's no way he can translate all the project notes in only half an hour. “He was laughing at you.”

“It's fine.” Jake flips his notebook shut. “Fuck this, I can't concentrate. You have a problem if I put music on?”

“Go ahead.” _N'oubliez pas de vérifier régulièrement si vous avez mal tapé une ligne de code._ Two more pages. Johann wishes he had a copying machine. Delacourt's handwriting is so neat it could practically be print in a book, but it's incredibly small, and Johann keeps missing the accents. Jake opens his computer, and Johann stops what he's doing long enough to watch. He can only imagine how much easier it must make schooling to have a private connection instead of having to sign up at the library. The first tinny blare of orchestra rolls into the room, and he goes back to his notes. 

The lights in the cafeteria turn off in the far distance, and Johann takes Delacourt's notebook back to the table he left it on. He got the entire rubric, at least. He thinks.

“I'm Jewish.”

It's the first thing Jake says when Johann walks back into the room, and Johann blinks at him. 

“Okay?”

“That's why he was laughing. Last semester he got suspended because he cut out a Magen David and wrote 'Jew' on it and taped it to my back on the way to class. He probably thinks it's really fucking funny my roommate's from Germany now because that's where my grandparents are from.” Jake keeps his face turned toward the computer screen. Johann feels his mouth drop open.

“He _what?_ ”

Jake swivels his chair around. “Look, I really don't want to talk about it, okay? If you want to see if they can move you to a different room so you don't have to put up with the bullshit, I don't care.” Then he jumps up and heads for the toilet.

Johann stares after him, stunned. Finally he turns back to his own desk; staring won't give him answers, and he has notes to translate. 

There's a clatter from the bathroom, and then a loud _fuck_ , followed by a few more muttered variations on the same and then silence.

“Are you okay?”

There's a pause so long Johann wonders if Jake didn't hear him, or maybe he's being ignored. Then:

“I dropped my fucking glasses.”

Jake doesn't sound angry; he sounds, Johann thinks, ready to cry. He puts down his pen and heads for the toilet, where he finds Jake crouching by the sink feeling around with his fingertips.

“Hey,” Johann says, and Jake's head snaps up. Johann feels his mouth drop open; Jake's left eye lists toward the side of his face, and his right one doesn't seem to focus at all. 

No wonder he's so afraid of losing his glasses. He's probably very close to blind.

Johann spots his glasses, thick horn-rimmed things that somehow bounced to the far side of the room near the door to the shower, and picks them up before plopping down on the floor in front of Jake and putting one of the stems in Jake's hand. Jake fumbles them back onto his face, then looks away. He's going to get to his feet and go bury himself in his bed, Johann thinks, and he opens his mouth and hopes something good comes out because he has no time to plan what he should say.

“I'm not going to ask them to change my room,” he says. “And I'm not sorry I broke his wrist. He should be sorry for being an asshole.”

Jake turns his head back, but slowly. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. I mean, unless you want me to.”

The grin that spreads over his face is pale, but it's there, and when Johann offers him a hand off the floor he takes it. “Nah.”

“So what's a Magen David?”

“You know the star people use when they're talking about Jewish people? The six-pointed one?”

Johann nods. He's only ever seen it in history class, on a somber day when they covered some of the worst history in Ingolstadt, but he has seen it.

“That's the Magen David. Means 'shield of David' in English.”

Johann thinks about where he's seen the six-pointed star, and what Jake confided in him about his grandparents and Dvorak, and feels sick. They still barely know each other, but Jake is one of the kinder people he's met since he left Ingolstadt. “I'm _really_ not sorry I broke his wrist.”

“Gonna get a demerit,” Jake comments, and Johann shrugs.

“Self-defense, they can't exactly hold it against me. Hey, do you know where I can get a copy of my class schedule? I think I left mine in the airport.”

“Yeah, you can get it online,” Jake says. “You can borrow my computer, computer lab's already closed.”

“Thanks,” Johann says.

And as Jake settles back in to log onto the school portal with Johann's number, he smiles.

\--------------------------------

“Jesus _Christ!_ ”

Johann sits up and clamps his hands over his ears. Overhead, the fire alarm flashes bright white and blares out a klaxon call it's impossible to hide from. Across the room, Johann sees Jake stumbling out of bed. He misses the last two rungs on the bunk and takes a sudden step back to correct his balance, then toes into his trainers and runs out the door. There's a small oblong box attached to their doorway—one Johann's meant to ask him about, and hasn't—and he tears it off the doorpost as he goes.

Johann's descent is slower; he can see part of the other wing from the window, and although all the lights are on he doesn't see any fire or smoke and the room is no warmer than it's been for the last three days. 

_Quickly, Johann,_ Amber Mammoth urges.

“Yeah,” he agrees, throwing his dressing gown on over his nightclothes and slipping his deck into his pocket. Then he thinks better of it and puts his coat on over the gown; it has to be a good ten degrees below freezing, at least.

He grabs his key and his gloves, and then hears Ruby let out a shrill protest—Jake's deck. In the rush to get out of the building, he missed it. Johann pockets it, then hurries for the exit.

Outside, both Black dorms are huddled together in varying states of dress. Some boys came fully prepared; others are wrapped only in blankets or tee shirts. Jake is near the edge of the group, arms wrapped around his bare chest, shivering, lips blue. Johann pulls off his coat and throws it over Jake's shoulders. Jake pulls it tighter around himself.

“Thanks.”

“You forgot your deck,” Johann says, and holds it out. It's a good thing he had the coat on over the dressing gown; even with the warmth he gathered up on the way out he's already getting cold. There's a sudden shrill noise, and he looks up to see a familiar-looking man with a large moustache and a searchlight blowing on a police whistle.

Dr. Pedersen.

“Black House, assemble!”

The students around Johann suddenly break their huddle for warmth and fall immediately into a line across the snow. Jake grabs Johann's elbow and pulls him in. At the head of the line, a short man with blonde hair and a large pot belly is taking attendance.

“Wherever you go, it is always important to bring your greatest tool with you!” Dr. Pedersen calls. “If you have no deck, take one large step backward.”

A little over a third of Black House falls out of line. There are murmurs up and down the group. Johann wonders if they went through this at the start of the first term. From the facial expressions he can see, he's guessing not.

“Those of you who stepped backward, go sit down,” he says. A few students, confused, head for the Black Two foyer. The blonde teacher stops them.

“Outside,” he says. Johann opens his mouth to protest; one of the boys from Black One is wearing only a towel and someone else's ill-fitting dressing gown. Dr. Pedersen blows the whistle again, and the discontented murmurs settle at once. Dr. Pedersen starts walking down the line, towing a box on a sled and handing out duel disks—first-gen style, the ones that produced the holograms from within an actual microchip in the housing instead of a built-in floor system.

“Those of you remaining, pair off,” he directs. “You may begin dueling as soon as you have a disk.”

Jake tears away from Johann and latches onto one of the kids from Black One. Johann turns around and finds himself face to face with Escobar, from his own dorm.

“I will challenge you,” Escobar says. “The sooner we have winners, I think it is the sooner we can go inside, yes?”

Johann nods, takes Escobar's deck to shuffle, tries to remember how to activate a first-gen disk. They weren't in use long; no more than six months, he thinks. 

The night is cold, wind whipping their clothes around them and everyone dueling in the half-light of glitchy holograms and two searchlights, yelling _it's my turn_ and _I set a—wait, that's not what I thought_ and _I play Pot of Greed_. The whole scene is like something from some kind of psychological thriller movie, the boys sitting on the sidelines yelling for them to hurry it up, get a move on, and when Escobar's disk goes dark and Johann's counts Escobar's life points at zero, he breathes a sigh of relief.

Then Dr. Pedersen taps Escobar's shoulder. “Sit down, Escobar.”

“But—!”

“Anderson, find another partner,” Dr. Pedersen says. “Anyone who still has a disk.”

Escobar heads for the group of boys, now larger than it was. Johann sees a shock of dark red hair and realizes Jake is among them, and finds another target—a boy from Black One, one of the ones from the table that taunted the two of them at lunch. It's over fast; Dvorak was the muscle in that group.

The group sitting grows, and grows; the remaining duelists narrow down to four. Across the churned-up snow and glaring searchlights Johann sees Delacourt facing off against a boy with neon blue hair and a permanent pout. Good match, Johann thinks, and then the boy with blue hair swears in Russian and kicks his disk as it goes dark.

Johann doesn't bother waiting; he marches up to Delacourt before Dr. Pedersen can even tap the Russian boy off the field. “I guess it's my turn to challenge you.”

Delacourt doesn't answer, and Johann has a moment to wonder if they're the last two standing because of skill or sheer preparedness—they're the only two in full flannel nightclothes and slippers and dressing gowns, and where Johann grabbed only his gloves Delacourt came with mitten-gloves and a beanie. He didn't give up his coat to anyone, either.

Then Delacourt takes his deck, shuffles it, and shoves it back into his hand.

 _Hurry, Johann,_ Amethyst Cat urges. _I think some of these boys are going to be sick._

Johann shuffles Delacourt's deck and hands it back to him before jogging back a reasonable distance.

“Duel!”

Johann studies his opening hand and tries to ignore the shrill of the wind and the eyes of thirty boys waiting to be put out of their misery in the predawn gloom. “I set one card!” he yells, knowing they'll be waiting to hear every word. “And I play one card in Defense Mode. Turn end.”

Delacourt looks at Johann's field with disdain. “I draw.”

Johann watches him shuffle the cards in his hand, fingers moving one, shifting another, before finally pulling one out and putting it on the field.

“I play the Field Magic, Land of Wonders,” he says, and Johann watches as Delacourt's duel disk tries to summon up a dark forest filled with strange flowers. It succeeds . . . mostly. “Then I set one card and play one card in Defense Mode.” 

Defense Mode. Johann wonders just how good a duelist Delacourt is; he's been too busy trying to beat everyone else to pay any attention. It could be a last-ditch move, or it could be a trap, like the one Johann is trying to set.

“Land of Wonders allows me to change the position of one card on the field by removing one card from my hand,” Delacourt says. Somewhere in the background, Johann hears someone—possibly Jake—scream _fuck._ “I'll change my card into Attack Mode and Special Summon White Rabbit.”

Johann stares at the tiny monster—just a little thing with a carrot and a gigantic pocket watch. 100 ATK, 100 DEF. Something isn't right. Delacourt rearranges his hand again.

“In the turn that White Rabbit is summoned to the field in Attack position, I can remove him from the field to the Cemetery to summon the Lost Maiden,” Delacourt says. Lost Maiden—a little girl with a pinafore and 0 ATK and DEF—appears on his field. “Then I activate the Quick-Play Magic, Royal Invitation, from my hand. Royal Invitation can be played as an Equip Card on Lost Maiden. When I equip Lost Maiden with Royal Invitation, I can summon a White Knight Lv. 2 from my deck or hand to the field.”

“But that card's a Level Four!” Johann protests, as something that looks very much like a knight on a horse and somewhat more like a chess piece appears in Delacourt's second monster zone. Delacourt fixes him with a long-suffering stare.

“When White Knight Lv. 2 is Special Summoned to the field, I can Special Summon a second White Knight Lv. 2,” Delacourt says. At least his hand is empty, Johann thinks. “Then I activate the Quick-Play Magic, Guards! Guards! in my Back Row.”

_Shit!_

Johann barely has time to read the text on the hologram before a much larger knight appears on the field. The card name is White Knight Lv. 4, but the level stars come up to seven.

_This is ridiculous!_

“And now I attack Amber Mammoth with White Knight Lv. 4.”

 _I'm sorry, Johann,_ Amber Mammoth rumbles. The White Knight has 2400 ATK. At least the Solid Vision on these old disks is almost nil; there's no illusion of impact to go with the howling wind and snow pelting Johann's face.

“And now I attack directly with White Knight Lv. 2.”

1600 ATK. Johann counts backward in his head.

_Fuck, I'm going to lose if I can't summon on my next turn!_

“I attack directly with my second White Knight Lv. 2.” 

He's going to have to hope for a good draw. Amber Mammoth was the only monster in his hand.

“Battle Phase end. In the turn when Lost Maiden is summoned in attack mode but does not attack during the Battle Phase, I can remove her from the game to summon the Queen of Cards from my deck or hand.”

_At least he's about to end his turn._

“It's my turn! I—”

“I activate Queen of Cards' effect and skip my opponent's Draw Phase.”

Johann stares down at his hand. Emergency Provisions will do him no good; he has no other set cards. And there's nothing in his deck that would clear Delacourt's entire field. Unless—

“I play Pot of Greed.”

Gem Guidance and Ruby Carbuncle. 

_Rubi._

“I set two cards and end my turn.”

Delacourt didn't have to use Queen of Cards to end the duel, but even as Johann watches his life points spin to zero he can't help thinking it would've been a copout to use anything else.

The fat blonde teacher walks a group of students back to Black One. Johann wonders as he tosses his duel disk back in the box if he's their advisor, since Dr. Pedersen is leading his own group. He stops them in the foyer.

“Some of you may have forgotten,” he says, “that you are among the top forty students in this school when the dorms are full. At this precise moment, you are among the top thirty. Your job is to teach and mentor the students in the Brown and Navy Houses. In a call of fire, most people will take the thing most valuable to them. If your deck isn't it, you do not belong in Black House. Updated rankings will be posted tomorrow morning. Go to bed.”

Johann catches up with Jake on the stairs. “You okay?”

Jake's lips are blue, and even inside Johann's coat he's shivering. He shakes his head without answering and puts his head down. They're most of the way to their room when Jake pulls out the little oblong box.

“I forgot my deck because this was the first thing I thought about.”

“What is it?”

Jake mutters something Johann doesn't catch and fixes the little box to the doorframe, canted to the left. “It's a mezuzah.”

“A what?”

“It's—okay,” Jake says. “It's actually not a mezuzah. The mezuzah is the scroll inside it. This is just the case. The scroll has part of the Torah written on it and when you put it in your doorway it's supposed to protect you. I couldn't leave it behind, this one was made for me. My saba sewed it for my bar mitzvah. Cards are cards, you know? I can replace those, but Saba Sam's got arthritis, I don't think he could make another mezuzah case and even if he could it wouldn't be this one.”

“He _sewed_ it?”

“Yeah, it's fired leather. Pretty cool, huh?”

“Yeah,” Johann agrees. Then he takes a closer look at Jake's face. “You know, just because adults say things doesn't make them true.”

Jake shrugs. “I was the first one down.” He pulls off Johann's coat and tosses it at the hard plastic desk chair Johann has nothing to replace. “I wouldn't have been able to duel at all if it wasn't for you.”

“Yes, well, a lot of people apparently didn't remember their decks and they're rotten enough to their roommates that nobody wanted to help them. And I lost to Delacourt,” Johann says. He tries to keep the disgust out of his voice. The Gem Beasts are a swarm deck, but they take actual skill to play.

“It's your first faceoff,” Jake tells him. “He was ranked second in the class last semester. Just wait, you'll kick his ass.”

Johann kicks off his slippers and slides back under the covers. “I hope so. He didn't even accept my challenge, he just grabbed my deck.”

“Yeah, that's Delacourt,” Jake agrees. “Get some sleep, we've gotta be up in four hours.”

Johann snuggles into the last fading warm spots his body made an hour before. Before he falls asleep, he thinks about the match.

He's never been second before, and he doesn't like it a bit.

\------------------------

“Seriously, Anderson?”

Johann tries to talk around his last bite of toast. It doesn't go well, and finally he gives up and swallows. “I grabbed one more on the way out.”

“Man, you eat more than me, and that's saying something,” Jesse comments, as they file into the classroom. “You better hope you don't have to go to the bathroom in the middle of class. Stein _hates_ that.”

“I was hungry,” Johann protests. Most of the seats fill from the back forward, and after a quick look around he decides to take the double-desk next to Jesse. Jake is tucked into a corner in the front row, one of only four kids sitting there, and his desk is a single.

There's little of the commotion Johann would expect with the teacher absent; this class is cross-dorm, and while the Black Housers are many of them pale and sleepy there are Navy and Brown students who look just fine. And even they, the supposed poorer students, have books and papers on their desks already. Johann bites his lip. He has his textbook, and a pen and binder, but everyone else has a blue folder in front of them that Johann's pretty sure he didn't get when he got the manila envelope that contained all the syllabuses and information he'd need to catch up on first semester.

The door opens, and shuts, and everyone jumps to attention as the fat blonde man from last night strides to the front of the room, scowling as he goes and dropping a stack of books onto the desk.

This must be Stein.

“Holiday homework to the front,” he says, with no preamble, and Johann pulls out the thick stack of printouts he was told to complete. He thinks it might actually comprise all the homework from the first semester, and he's incredibly glad the class subject matter is all current dueling events. Then he realizes the rest of the boys all handed in their blue folders. At last he bites his lip and puts the stack of papers on the bottom. Stein collects the seven stacks of folders, squares them on the desk, and drops them next to his books before pulling a clipboard out of the pile like it causes him physical pain.

“Jao Abreu.”

“Present,” says a green-haired boy from Brown dorm. Stein makes a check on the clipboard.

“Hans Adema.”

“Here.”

“Michael Allard.”

“Present.”

Johann sees Stein frown even harder.

“Jesse Anderson.”

“Here.”

There's a slight pause. “ _Johann_ Anderson.”

“Present,” Johann says, and hears a few stray whispers. Stein makes a face like he's bitten into a lemon and then calls David Bernstein. The boy belonging to the name says “Da- _veed_ , sir, and I'm here,” and the entire room goes even more rigidly silent. Stein's lips thin down to a single tight line, and he stares at the name's owner—a boy with curly black hair and olive skin in a brown jacket.

“Who teaches this class?” he says, and Johann watches the boy shrink down.

“You do, sir.”

“Is it appropriate to correct one's teacher?”

Bernstein shakes his head.

“In fact it seems to me this is the third time you've corrected me on this matter. You may collect your demerit after class.”

Bernstein hangs his head. “Yes, sir.”

Johann swears he can feel the dislike rolling in waves toward the front of the room as Stein finishes roll and flicks through the folders, looking for missing names. At the bottom, he stops.

“Anderson,” he says, and then that slight emphasis again. _Johann_ Anderson. Where is your folder?”

Johann glances left at Jesse and wonders just how much ass-kissing is considered excessive. This isn't the impression he hoped to make in his first class at all. “I'm sorry, sir, I didn't know I needed one until I saw everyone else's. I can get one at the commissary during break,” he suggests. Stein picks up his stack of make-up work, _Johann H. Anderson Period One Dr. M. Stein_ written in his best writing in every right-hand corner, and dumps the entire thing in the trash.

“I do not give credit for improperly-handled work.”

Johann opens his mouth, ready to offer up a cry of protest, and then feels Jesse's heel— _hard_ —on his toes.

“Yes, sir.”

He doesn't speak again for the rest of the class, and when the bell rings he sits, still as a statue, until Stein says the class is dismissed. Then he squares his shoulders and heads for the desk while Bernstein slowly packs away his things.

“Professor?”

Stein stares at him, blue eyes peering out from a round face. Johann feels a strong mental nod from Cobalt Eagle and musters up his courage.

“I'm sorry my work was loose,” he says, even as he feels the stack of handwritten essays and homework questions off to his left like a weight. “I should have asked someone who was in the class last semester so I'd be better prepared. I wanted to know—if I submitted it to you again next class—properly, I mean—”

“I don't accept late work for any reason.”

“I could bring it after lunch,” Johann says. He can't materialize something he didn't know he needed out of thin air. Stein must know that. “I know it's an inconvenience, I'm sorry—”

“Were you in the habit of arguing with your teachers at Sacred Heart?”

Johann feels his stomach turn over and doesn't even bother speaking. He just shakes his head and turns to leave.

“Did I dismiss you?”

Johann stops. He wants to stay where he is, but he has the feeling it's only inviting more trouble if his back is turned. “No, sir.”

“You may have the idea that you're somehow special because of your _situation_ ,” Stein says. “You are not. You will follow the same rules as everyone else, or face demerit and demotion. You're dismissed.”

Johann wants to put his head down. He also suspects Stein wants him to put his head down, so he doesn't—he just casts a sidelong glance of sympathy at Bernstein on his way out. 

Jake is waiting outside the door, leaning on the wall, when Johann walks out.

“If it makes you feel any better, he does it to everybody,” Jake says. “He's a fucking asshole. Hey, you okay?” 

The last comment is directed over Johann's shoulder, and he turns to see Bernstein behind them, head lower than ever, shoulders hunched in.

“Y'know, Mom Dianne sent me some kichlach, you should come up to Black after class. There's no way I'm gonna eat them all.”

Johann sees a ghost of a smile on Bernstein's face. “Thank you, but—”

“I've got some rugelach, too. Mom Dianne said all Mom Penny's done since I got back is bake. She doesn't know what to do when she's not schlepping me to rehearsal every night so she started practicing again.”

The smile grows a little. “Rugelach would be good.” Then it fades. “But I've gotta go, I have math.”

“And I have Programming Languages,” Johann says. His stomach tries to turn again. Jake offers him a sympathetic look.

“You'll be fine,” he says, and then Bernstein jumps.

“I almost forgot,” he says, and pulls a thick stack of papers out of his bag and shoves them into Johann's hands. “He left as soon as he dismissed me.” And then Bernstein runs off.

“A lot of good it'll do, he said he won't take them,” Johann says, looking down at his discarded and rescued homework.

“Talk to Dr. Pedersen, maybe he can do something,” Jake says. “I gotta jet, I've got a psych class next. You good with the map?”

Johann nods. North School's layout is simple. If he can't find his classroom, someone can easily direct him.

He hopes.

\----------------------

“Good morning! Who wants coffee?”

There's a clamor of voices from all sides. Someone passes Johann a cup, and he smells it gratefully. It's good coffee. Strong.

“Show of hands,” says the blue-jeaned boy at the front. “Who needs cream or sugar?”

Johann joins a flock of other hands, and the boy hands a tray to the first boy in the front with a hand up. “Pass it down, don't spill. Welcome back.”

_Wait, that's not a student, that's a teacher!_

The teacher who isn't a boy has shaggy brown hair, and green eyes, and there's no tie under his uniform jacket.

Also, he doesn't look like he hates the entire world just for existing. That's a plus.

“So! Four weeks away. A lot's happened in that time. Not just in the programming world, but, I hope, yours as well. Who wants to share? Let's start with the obvious. One of you must know what it is.”

Three or four hands go up, and—Johann flips through his binder as quietly as he can, looking for a name, with no success—the teacher gestures at one of them. “Szabó! What is it?”

“KaibaCorp released the code for the first two generations of Duel Disk to open-source.”

“Yes! They're looking for people who can do some interesting things with it as a first level application for internships. Who here has started working with it already? Floros?”

“The program has never been translated into Greek. I recorded 460 card names during break and started inserting them in the program code.”

“Good start,” the teacher comments. “There are some great duelists coming out of Greece right now. Stavros, Pachis, this year's Pan-Euro Cup, both of them trained in Italy because there's no Greek League. It's very close to an untouched market. Nygård, I saw your hand too.”

“My brother and I started coding a patch to make the second-gen disk accessible to blind players.”

The teacher claps his hands together. “Now that's something to discuss. That's going to require an all-new code patch. Are you making the modification audio?”

Nygård nods. “It needs someone who can do physical mods, right now the disk we're re-coding only has four Trap/Spell Zones because we needed to use the last one for the patch.”

“Maybe something you could share with the boys in the Technical Hardware class and see if you can't put together a full prototype. Anyone else? Anyone? No? Who has a side project outside your homework you'd like to share? Davies? Still working on your electronic index?”

“Yeah, I still need to get hold of a full deck list for the E-Heroes. All these promo decks are killing me. I2 just released _another_ one to some kid in Germany and they're saying there's only one copy of each card, ever, at all.”

The teacher's whole face crinkles up in an impish smile, and he gestures at Johann. “I can help you with that one. For those of you who don't know yet, we have a new face in class. I expect you to help him catch up. Welcome, Johann.”

Johann hears a quiet smattering of _Johann? Johann Anderson?_ cover the room. Then a voice yells “dude! I did a whole fucking report on your deck!” from the other side of the room, and Johann watches the teacher smother a chuckle as the class laughs.

“ _Language_ , Martin,” he says, and then shakes his head. “All right, by now you've either gotten out your homework or a very good excuse why you haven't got it, let's pass it up.”

Johann watches the flurry of red folders head to the front and bites his lip. He doesn't have one of those, either, and instead of putting in more work to be thrown out he just passes forward the stack of folders and stares very hard at the back of Delacourt's head. 

Most of the class period focuses on review of where everyone else left off in December—some basic codes and commands in Java that most of the class looks like they could do in their sleep. Johann's read them, but never actually input them before; there's no way he can keep up.

The bell rings, and as everyone files out, the teacher motions Johann to the front. Johann packs up his things and heads forward. This time he does put his head down. Stein he didn't care about insulting, but this teacher was actually kind.

More importantly, it's a programming core class.

“I noticed you didn't pass your makeup work forward,” he says, and Johann tries to hide a wince. “I know Black House had a duel drill this morning, did you forget it?”

Johann shakes his head. “I . . . . I didn't have a folder,” he says, and wishes he hadn't come forward. “Professor Stein said you have to submit your work in one.”

The teacher frowns. “I know I sent a folder and a syllabus to the office for you,” he answers. “Was it not given to you when you arrived?”

Johann shakes his head again. “I didn't know I needed to pick up anything that wasn't on my supplies list.” He bites his lip. “I'm sorry, I know I can't turn it in now but—”

The teacher is frowning so heavily Johann cuts off mid-sentence. So much for his good impressions.

“Who told you late work can't be turned in?”

“Doctor Stein.”

If the teacher frowns any harder, Johann thinks, his face may crack in two. He takes a deep breath.

“I don't know what Dr. Stein told you exactly,” he says. “But most Academia teachers will not refuse to accept late work under extenuating circumstances. We're here to help you succeed.” 

Johann nods. The teacher reaches into his bag and pulls out a large binder, then flicks through it until he finds several sheets of paper and hands them over with one of the red folders everyone else turned in.

“I always keep extra. Do you have your work with you?”

Johann nods. “Can I—can I still give it to you?”

“Of course.” He waits while Johann stuffs his work into the folder, then holds out a hand for it. “I'd suggest you make the office your first stop on break. There should be a packet for you from all of your professors.”

“Thank you, Professor—” Johann sneaks a peek at the papers. “Saltzman.”

“It's my pleasure, Johann,” he answers, and offers a hand to shake. “Now you'd better get going. Break is only twenty minutes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! You here for the stats on the deck included in this fic? Here you go.
> 
> Delacourt's deck is a 42-card swarm deck based on the _Alice in Wonderland_ books. Its ace card is the effect monster Queen of Cards, with 2800ATK/2500DEF, with the following lore: 
> 
> _This card may not be Normal Summoned or Set and must be Special Summoned by removing Lost Maiden from the game. Once per turn, you may skip your opponent's Draw Phase if this card is on your field in Attack Position. Once per turn, you may summon a Pawn Token on either field if this card is on your field in Defense Position._
> 
> The apparently-nonsensical chain-summoning of monsters whose names don't match their levels is a reference back to the _Alice_ books, in which Alice attempts to practice her multiplication tables but quickly finds that she's multiplying in bases other than ten, leaving her with answers like "four times five is twelve," and leaving her to lament she "shall never get to twenty at that rate."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Johann settles in, he's also got growing pains to face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, two notes. I'll do the really important one first: 
> 
> Readers who may be triggered by transphobic microaggressions should know there are several in this chapter.
> 
> Now the less important one.
> 
> Johann, in the original canon, is a "European" (how specific) character, written by Japanese people, voiced by a Japanese woman, who is speaking Japanese. None of this is a problem, it's actually pretty awesome to see a Japanese show that presented multiculturalism in a way that wasn't completely racist and nationalistic. But it does leave us with "so what does he actually SOUND like?", since obviously in "real life" Johann would not have a Japanese accent. I watched a lot of videos of German people speaking both English and German for research, and contrary to the common idea that German is all spit and anger and ACHTUNG and STURM UND DRANG, the German accent in English can actually be very soft and rounded. Off this, and also my ideas about Johann struggling with other languages, I built his "voice"--high tenor, loud in volume but very soft in pitch and accent, with some difficulty voicing both sounds traditionally difficult for German ESL speakers (e.g. "sinks" instead of "things") and also some dipthongs. 
> 
> I don't usually say "you must subscribe to my vision of this character," because I feel like that's really counter to the concept of "let us love on this thing together," but for this story specifically, I do suggest you keep this headcanon in mind, for reasons that aren't going to come up for a very long time (much like the actual franchise), but are rather important.

“Say what about Jews?”

Johann pushes his fringe out of his face and takes two or three breaths so deep he doesn't even register Jake's question at first. Then he pauses.

“What?”

Jake's face across the room in the light from under the door is suspicious bordering on hateful. “You said something about Jews.”

Johann shakes his head. “No . . . ” He tries to remember the last fading bits of his dream. “I don't think. I don't remember. I had a nightmare.”

“You did, though,” Jake says. “With the right letters and everything. 'Jews.' Not dues or shoes like when you're awake.”

“Can't have, it's not just an accent, I went to classes to fix it and everything when I was a kid and it didn't help,” Johann comments. He closes his eyes and pushes the heels of his hands into them. “There was this boy, I thought it was Delacourt because of his eyes but it wasn't, he was smiling . . . ” A sudden pulse of pain blooms behind his eyes like a migraine. “I don't remember. He was in trouble. Someone wanted to bury him alive, because he—he—” The pulse of pain sharpens. “I don't remember why.”

“Sounds like you're stressed out from your first ride on the Stein-go-round,” Jake comments. “Don't let him get to you.” He still looks unnerved, but the anger is gone, and that's good. “But if that's enough to wake you up screaming, man, I don't want to see you at fucking midterms.”

“It wasn't Stein,” Johann protests. “I . . . don't remember who it was.”

“Go back to sleep,” Jake tells him. “You're gonna fall asleep in class.”

“Yeah,” Johann agrees. “You sleep too.”

Jake rolls over and falls back asleep at once. Johann stays awake a lot longer, trying to piece together the dream.

_There was a boy. He's real, and he's in trouble._

_It was a dream, Anderson, get it together._

_But the boy—!_

_Forget the boy, would you? It's the middle of the night._

At last he falls back asleep almost without noticing. By morning, he's forgotten he was ever awake.

\----------------

“I'm sorry.”

Johann blinks. They've barely spoken since leaving lunch, but it's been a companionable kind of silence, the sort brought on by post-food stupor and the general quiet of a class period intended for individual or group study. “Huh?”

Jake is chewing on a pencil, staring down at a page he hasn't put a single word on.

“For making fun of the way you say my name. I didn't know you had a speech impediment.”

“It's fine. I decided a long time ago it was way down my list of things to worry about, you know?”

“Yeah, but that doesn't make what I did okay.” Jake spits out a piece of the foam from his pencil grip, and Johann resists the urge to snatch it out of his hand before he can swallow part of it whole. “You can call me Hawkins if it's easier for you, I don't want to be a pain in the—”

“What about Hawk?”

Jake blinks at him. “Huh?”

“That's a bird in English, right?”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah, that works, if you want.”

Johann turns his eyes back to his tablet. Then he sighs and slams his stylus down. “Uggggh, I give up, I can't even manage Hello World.”

“What?”

“It's the first program you're supposed to write. I have all the characters memorized, but now I've got to demonstrate a program and there's this thing most people use as the first program called Hello World, and I've got something missing and I can't find it.”

“Try talking it out? Like reading it or something.”

Johann stares at him. “Huh?”

“You know, just read it aloud. That's what I do when I'm looking for spelling mistakes.”

Johann stares at Jake—at Hawk, pulling out a ruler for algebra. Then he stares back at his tablet. Then he pulls out his deck, props Ruby against his pencil case, and waits for the trill of _rubi, rubi?_ in his ear before he speaks.

“All right,” he says. “I've got to find this error. Let's go.”

_Rubi!_

He reads in an undertone, trying not to disturb the students around him. Then he notices Hawk frowning at his page, and glances over. 

“What's up?”

“I can't remember which order you're supposed to do the coordinates in for slope.”

“You divide the difference of the y-coordinates by the difference of the x-coordinates.”

“X is the horizontal one, right?”

“Yeah. That's it, I'm missing the second backslash!” Johann grabs his stylus and types it in. Then he scrolls down the terminal window. “Right, so—that executes and— _yeah!_ ”

“It ran?”

“It ran!” He stares at the screen for a minute, then scrolls back up to his program and erases _Hello, World!_ to enter in some other text before executing again. “Here, look.”

Hawk takes the tablet. “Where?”

“Down at the bottom, here—”

“Oh my _god_ , Anderson, fuck off!”

Johann laughs loudly enough to raise a few heads as Hawk starts snickering. He doesn't care.

Across the screen, the text _my roommate is a giant bird_ shows as a perfectly executed program.

\-------------------

“So, how's it going?”

“Not bad,” Johann says, and tries to keep his voice down. The ground floor of Black Dorm One is twice as large as upstairs, with a pair of wings instead of only one, and even though it's all administrative he can hear himself echoing down the corridors like they're devoid of life altogether. He hopes Schröter can hear him; telephone out of North School is all by satellite, and not always reliable. “I've been to all my classes now.”

“And?”

“Most of them are pretty good. Dr. Pedersen is my dorm advisor, and I'm supposed to have an educational track advisor but I don't know who yet so I need to ask at the office. My roommate's really nice, but we're not in the same program, or I'd ask him.”

“Your teachers are all helping you catch up?”

“Ah,” Johann says, and then the door swings open and Escobar runs in with someone so swathed in beanie and muffler and gloves and snowsuit that Johann can't tell who it is, their voices echoing excitedly down the corridors in strings of syllables Johann can't decipher. The other student must be Sanchez. “Well, I'm going to have to keep at it to catch up, but they've already posted new duel ranks, I'm second in the dorm.”

“Johann, please answer the question.”

“Sorry, someone came in and I don't know if either of them speak German,” Johann says, voice lower than ever, as Escobar and Sanchez stomp up the staircase. “Most of them. I mean, some of them are super-friendly and really want to help and some it feels like, well, it's their job so they'll do it but they don't much care one way or the other, but then there's one who's really awful and maybe I'm just being paranoid but I think he kind of threatened to out me? I don't have any idea what I did to him, Hawk said he's like this to everyone but I think that's a little excess—”

“Hawk?”

“My roommate.”

“I see. Which teacher is giving you these problems?”

“Duel History and Current Events.”

Schröter makes an _mm_ sound. At least, Johann thinks it's Schröter; it could be the bad phone connection. “Have you spoken to Dr. Pedersen?”

“Not yet. I want to talk to the professor again first. I'd feel pretty stupid if I went to Dr. Pedersen and then it turned out I was wrong, and then he really _would_ probably be out to get me.”

“Let me know if you need help. I got a copy of the Parent and Guardian Student Handbook in the mail last week, and it says you're under Norwegian legal jurisdiction right now. If he did threaten you, it's not just against policy, it's illegal.”

“Well, that's good to—wait, I'm in _Norway?_ ” Johann stares, openmouthed, at a very interesting blank spot on the wall, not seeing a single bit of it. Schröter sounds confused.

“Did you not know?”

“No. Wait, so if I'm in Norway, and the school year is nine months long, hold up—” Johann feels his whole face go slack with shock. “Then I'm a Norwegian resident!”

“Johann, slow down,” Schröter says, and now Johann hears some alarm in his voice. “Just because you're under Norwegian jurisdiction doesn't mean your guardianship doesn't sta—”

“No, no, it means I meet the residency requirements to participate in the Norwegian League! I'm a German citizen but a Norwegian resident, I can duel on the German Circuit and still join the League here!” He gasps. “Trondheim's in Norway, right? That's the Scandinavian Circuit, too!” He plunges ahead before Schröter can cut him off. “I can register in the Scandinavian Circuit, do you know what that is? That's one of the three circuits in the _Pan-Euro Cup!_ If I do it right I can get scouted into the adult Pro Leagues from here!”

“Well, that's certainly ambitious,” Schröter tells him. “Don't fall behind in your studies, though. There are only 119 slots in the EPDL, I looked it up. You could be fighting for awhile.”

“I know, I know,” Johann says. Ruby trills from his shoulder. _Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, back to earth now, I get it._ “But that's a huge chance.” He pauses. “ _If_ they count North School as residency, I guess. I should probably look it up before I get too excited, huh?”

“That would be a good idea, yes.”

Johann wonders if the phone cord is long enough for him to sit on the floor. He decides to try it. “Sorry.”

“Don't be sorry you're passionate about something,” Schröter tells him. “Just don't forget you have other obligations and steps to fulfill.”

“I won't. And I'll talk to my professor this week.”

“Let me know how it goes.”

“I will.” There's a loud yell from upstairs. “I think I better go, I'm pretty sure that was Drăgoi. My prefect.”

“Yes, go,” Schröter says. “I'll talk to you soon.”

Johann says his goodbyes, then sits under the phone and stares at the wall. The Norwegian League. The Scandinavian Circuit. Even being able to participate in a few duels without being scouted as a pro would help. He thinks the Norwegian League and Swedish League might have an exchange program, too. He should really look all this up.

 _Don't forget what your guardian said, though, Johann,_ Sapphire Pegasus cautions. _It's good to have ambitions, but don't let them overshadow reality._

“I know. I'm not even sure I have the money for a league application. But there's always next year, if I can save up.”

 _Good, good,_ Emerald Turtle chimes in. Make plans.

_Johann, don't you have homework?_

Johann hauls himself to his feet. Most of his homework is done; all he has left is required reading and response on the new banlist for Stein, and algebra—five questions. A breeze, really. But he ought to get it done with.

\---------------------

“Homework on your desks.”

Johann takes his blue folder out of his binder. Before class, he talked to two students—a Navy Houser named Evans and a Black One named Khan—and he intends to follow their instructions to the letter.

“Jao Abreu.”

“Present.”

“Hans Adema.”

“Here.”

“Michael Allard.”

“Present.”

“ _Johann_ Anderson.”

“Here.” Jesse is sitting across the room this time. Evans took the seat next to Johann, and he's okay with that.

Stein still says David Bernstein's name wrong. This time he stays quiet about it, though, and keeps his head down. Stein drops his clipboard on the desk with a flat clap.

“Annual banlist,” he says. “You were assigned to read it and write a response. I want a respondent.”

There's silence. Johann realizes Stein is waiting for volunteers, but nobody looks willing.

“A respondent. Or I'll choose one myself.”

Johann glances as far around as he can without moving his head. At last he puts his hand in the air. Stein makes the bitten-lemon face again.

“ _Johann_ Anderson.”

“Yes, sir.” 

Evans pokes Johann in the hip with his pencil. Johann glances left, and Evans taps the pencil on the desk, point up— _up._ Johann gets to his feet. Nobody has to tell him twice.

“The banlist this year mostly focused on first-generation cards,” Johann says. “A lot of the cards on it were designed for the old percentage system, before the game switched to straight points.”

“ _Straight_ points, _Mister_ Anderson?”

_Shit._

“Points . . . er . . . ”

“In English, _Mister_ Anderson.”

_Fuck. He's literally going to mark me down because I can't remember how to say it._

“ _Fixed_ points. You know, like . . . instead of a field spell being worth a 20% attack points gain, it's worth 500 ATK per monster, no matter what that monster's original attack was. A lot of the banned cards work on percentages, not fixed points.”

Stein doesn't look impressed. “And your thoughts?”

“I actually think it makes the game a lot fairer. The percentage system was really easy to abuse by stacking effects, so even a 10% gain could add up to a few thousand points, if you had the right deck. I know there are people who'd disagree with me, but I don't think that's a duel at all. Unless both duelists have decks capable of that kind of stacking, it's just showing off your wallet. A couple of years ago there was this duelist in Berlin who got blacklisted from his league because he was forcing ante duels with a percentage deck. The league judges who reviewed the case classed it as theft of cards.”

Stein doesn't answer. Johann takes a deep breath.

“Outside of balancing the game, it's also really going to shake up the Pro League,” he continues. “Older duelists like Steig Nicholson who relied on percentages to compete with Fusion decks are going to have to adapt, or fall out of the league. It's going to put Sacrifice Summoning at a huge disadvantage, though, because a lot of the Fusions that are coming into the league right now, you don't have to have them in your hand to summon them, just your Extra Deck. A lot of those older decks are going to have to start including stuff like Mystical Space Typhoon if they want to stay rel—”

“Did I ask your opinion on how to circumvent the banlist, _Mister_ Anderson?”

Johann opens his mouth. Evans steps on his toes.

“No, sir.”

“Sit down.”

Johann sits. His face feels red. Stein calls on Bernstein and makes him give a response. Bernstein expresses surprise that Monster Reborn wasn't on the banlist. Stein asks Bernstein if he asked for an opinion on what _should_ be on the banlist, instead of what _is_. 

Then he calls on Hawk.

Johann crosses his fingers. Please, he thinks, _please_ let Hawk have actually completed some part of his homework.

“I . . . I don't think I've ever used any of the cards on the banlist,” Hawk confesses, and Johann hears a quiet sound that can only be most of the class gasping or whispering things like _shit_ under their breaths. “I looked up the ones I didn't recognize and about half the banlist was never released in America. I think what it kind of said to me was, you know, even though the game is global different people play it different ways in different places, and even though the game started in America it didn't necessarily _grow_ there at first. Because like Anderson said, most of what's on it is all first-gen, but—”

“I have already asked _Johann's_ opinion,” Stein interrupts. “I am asking for yours.”

Hawk turns bright red and looks down. Stein waits a few seconds, then tells him to sit down and orders everyone else to pull out their texts. Johann wonders if he might get away with passing Hawk a note, then decides neither of them need to be disemboweled today. 

After class, he finds himself running down the hall to catch up with Hawk. Fuck talking to Stein; Johann's sure now he wasn't being paranoid. 

“Hey!”

Hawk's shoulders are hunched, and when Johann puts a hand on his shoulder he jumps.

“Hey.”

“He's an ass,” Johann says. “I thought what you said was brilliant.”

Hawk flushes dull red again. “Not really.”

“Yes, really,” Johann insists. “There was one I didn't recognize, either, but I didn't think of looking it up to check where it was released. It's a history class. Release history is important, too.”

“You're the one who actually talked about how it'd affect the league—”

“ _All_ of our answers were important. Bernstein's right that Monster Reborn should at least have a limit on it and it's stunning they haven't added one yet. You're right that the game changes from place to place. And it _is_ going to change the league, and probably the whole future of the game. If it doesn't do anything else it proves Fusion is here to stay in the Pros.”

“My deck's Fusion,” Hawk says. “I didn't even play the game until Fusion came out.”

“See? You said it looked like about half the banlist was never released in America, but you've never used any of it. You've never needed it. It was just something to be used against you. Now it can't be.”

Hawk gives him a pale, lopsided grin. “You've been here a fucking week and I think you'd teach this class better than Stein does.”

“My mum's never picked up a deck in her life and _she'd_ teach it better than Stein does,” Johann says. “I think he just likes telling people they're wrong.”

“I can't believe he got on you about your English,” Hawk comments. “That's low even for Stein.”

“And he's got a German accent!” Johann says. Somehow, Stein's apparent origin makes the insult even worse. Hawk shrugs.

“Lunch after next class I'm supposed to meet with my project group from Psych, but do you wanna—”

“Next class! Shit! _Fich!_ ”

“Run!”

Johann doesn't need to be told twice. He still needs to demonstrate _Hello World_ for Saltzman before he can move on, and he's going to be late if he doesn't find a shortcut.


End file.
